Who Is Lord Capulet Responsible For The Death Of Romeo And Juliet

In the play Romeo and Juliet, I think that Lord Capulet is the person most responsible for the death of Romeo and Juliet.To start, Lord Capulet forced Juliet to marry Paris, a man she did not want to marry because she did not love him and she was already married to Romeo. “...An you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in the streets,/ For my soul, I’ll ne’er acknowledge thee,...”-Capulet (3.5.220-221).Lord Capulet says this after Juliet shows she is not happy about marrying Paris. He is willing to not only throw Juliet out of the house and disown her but to also not acknowledge her is she is starving and dying. This kind of threat scares Juliet and she feels she has no choice but to take the poison and follow through with Friar Laurence’s plan.Second,
Lord Capulet all of a sudden decides to change the date of the wedding with no warning and without talking to Juliet before he makes his decision.“I’ll have this knot knit up tomorrow morning,” he says after Juliet has agreed to marry Paris (4.2.26).Lord Capulet is so excited that Juliet is now on board with the wedding that he moves the date of the wedding to Wednesday instead of Thursday. Juliet then rushes to take the potion and hopes it works and Friar Laurence’s entire plan is thrown off course.Lastly, in the final scene of the play, Lord Capulet admits that the hatred between the Capulets and the Montagues is what killed their children.He says, “As rich shall Romeo by his lady’s lie-/ Poor sacrifices of our enmity!” (5.3.328-329).Lord Capulet is saying that their children are sacrifices of their hatred. He now realizes his part in their actions to kill themselves and he feels responsible.In conclusion, Lord Capulet’s actions have shown that he is most responsible for the deaths of Romeo and Juliet and in the end, realizes it himself.