Romeo and Juliet

Is Friar Lawrence responsible? There always has to be a person at fault when someone kills themselves. The play Romeo and Juliet is written by William Shakespeare, and it features two lovers by the names of Romeo and Juliet. They get married despite their parents hate for each other. Both Romeo and Juliet end up killing themselves and it is made unclear who is to blame for their deaths. Friar Lawrence is to blame for three main reasons, he developed multiple plans that repeatedly failed, he did not encourage them to tell their parents, and he married them in complete secrecy. The worst plan that Friar thought of was his plan to make it look as if Juliet was dead although she really is not. “A cold and drowsy humor” (5.1.96). This quotation is Friar explaining his plan to Juliet. This plan is to make Juliet seem dead so that she will not have to marry Paris. His plan goes successfully for the most part, but eventually it has a drastic downfall. Romeo did not know what the exact plan was, and he hears rumor that Juliet is actually dead. Romeo cannot handle the death of his beloved wife and he ends up killing himself. Juliet then wakes up from her coma and sees that Romeo has killed himself. She cannot handle his death either and she kills herself as well. Friar would have needed to make sure that Romeo knew every detail about the plan in order for the plan to actually work. Romeo and Juliet look to Friar for leadership in all aspects of their life, so when he suggests this plan, they are sure to agree. He should have thought more carefully about each specific step of the plan, because the consequences for his plan failing could be terrible. In this case his plan resulted in the death of Romeo and Juliet. Friar knew that it was a bad idea for the two to get married; he should have used his leadership role to influence them to not get married, or at least let their parents know about it. “Wisely and slow, they stumble that run fast”. (2.4.94.) This quote shows that he knew that it was a bad idea, yet he did nothing to intervene. Therefore Friar is to blame for the deaths of Romeo and Juliet. “To turn your households’ rancor to pure love” (2.4.92). Friar thinks that if Romeo and Juliet get married, it could settle the feud between their families. This is selfish of him because he does not think of Romeo and Juliet as individual people as much as he thinks of settling the feud between the two families. Romeo came to him to talk about Juliet, and Friar had the opportunity to tell Romeo what he was doing was wrong. Instead he let the thought of settling the Capulet and Montague family feud get the best of him and he participated in the marriage of Romeo and Juliet. It was a bad idea for Friar to marry them behind everyone’s backs. When Friar said: “In one respect I’ll thy assistant be” (2.3.90), he is telling Romeo that he is willing to be the man that marries him to Juliet. He thought that their marriage could settle the feuding between families, but he went about it the wrong way, He should have influenced Romeo and Juliet to tell their parents. Then this could have settled there feud. Instead he had them get married in secrecy, and Romeo and Juliet were very stressed out. Since the families did not know of their marriage, then Capulet decided that he was going to have Juliet marry Paris. This forced Friar to come up with another plan on the spot, and he did not have much time to think about it. That is why the plan failed, there was not enough thought put into it. If Friar would have handled this situation as an adult, then there would not have been a problem with the two getting married. Friar should have gone with Romeo and Juliet to talk to their parents together. That way he could have helped influence the Montague and Capulet families that Romeo and Juliet were right for each other. This would have worked out great because Romeo and Juliet would have been able to get married, and Friar would have gotten what he wanted. Which was the family feuding being put to an end. As you can see, Friar Lawrence is at fault for the deaths of Romeo and Juliet for three main reasons; he developed multiple failed plans, he did not encourage them to tell their parents, and he married them in secrecy. It obviously is not 100% Friar’s fault. Romeo and Juliet were the ones that chose to kill themselves, so you cannot pass all of the blame on to another person. But when someone commits suicide, there is usually another person who had something to do with getting them to a point where death is there only option. Romeo and Juliet died partially because of their own actions, and partially because of the actions of Friar Lawrence.