Mercutio Is To Blame In Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet

The death of two lovers; a very tragic event that was anticipated by the readers. Why did these lovers die? Was it their own fault? Or was it someone else? Romeo and Juliet were obviously not completely mature yet; they just weren’t old enough. According to Webster’s dictionary, the definition of immaturity is “lacking complete growth, differentiation, or development.” This definition easily describes the two main characters in the play. The play that these characters come from is Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. The play describes the life of two star crossed lovers who eventually kill themselves because of chaos, violence, and death happening frequently in each person’s family. Romeo and Juliet needed supporting characters to get
If it weren’t for these supporting characters, then Romeo and Juliet wouldn’t even have met each other in the first place. These supporting characters were also responsible for keeping Romeo and Juliet in check. Sometimes, they failed to do so. Out of all the supporting characters in the play, Mercutio is actually the person at fault for this young couple’s demise. When he is put into the play, Mercutio is a flamboyant person who is not afraid to defend himself or his friends. His best friend is Romeo, and first encounters Romeo in Act II of the play. Mercutio is a bit older than Romeo, but sometimes acts much younger. An example of this is in Act II where Mercutio is trying to get Romeo’s attention and he says, “ conjure thee by Rosaline’s bright eyes, By her high forehead and her scarlet lip, By her fine foot, straight leg, and quivering thigh.” Mercutio is luring Romeo in by talking about his crush. There are no known
When he is introduced in Act II, he is shown as Romeo’s best friend who jokes around a lot and uses a fair share of sexual innuendos. At one point, he even says, “That’s as much as to say, such a case as yours constrains a man to bow in the hams.” He is implying that Romeo had “important business” one night, and that this business was sexual. In Act II, Mercutio is very loud, and doesn’t care who hears what he says. During the duel in Act III, Mercutio is actually very violent, and is promoting a duel, which always brings death. His violent behavior in Act III leads to two deaths (including his own) and was the main reason Juliet faked her death, which is then why Romeo killed himself. Mercutio dies because he replaced Romeo in a duel that should have never happened. Tybalt challenged Romeo to a duel, but Romeo refused. Mercutio wanted to defend Romeo’s honor, so he ended up fighting Tybalt. Romeo tried to break up the fight, but Tybalt stabbed Mercutio by having his sword go under Romeo’s arm. Out of rage, Romeo then kills Tybalt. The death of Tybalt and Mercutio made an ongoing family feud much worse. Juliet became incredibly sad, and faked her own death. Romeo then thought Juliet was dead, so he killed himself. After finding out that Romeo was actually dead, Juliet kills herself. So, the death of Mercutio leads to the death of his best friend, his best friend’s wife, and his best friend’s