“Words are the source of misunderstandings,” Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote for his classic, The Little Prince. These words ring true and apply to anything involving communication, including our own life and others - and other fictional stories as well. Bring in The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, a play written by Shakespeare filled with countless counts of miscommunication, which leads to consequences that range from a simple mistake being made by one of the characters to the deaths of many other characters.
To begin, the lack of communication between everyone involved with The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet caused the downfall of many people, including Mercutio and Tybalt. One large show of miscommunication occurs between Tybalt and Romeo - a conflict is escalating between Tybalt, Mercutio, and Romeo. Romeo is attempting to
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While Romeo is in Mantua, Balthasar, his assistant, informs him that Juliet is dead; the problem is, she isn’t. Friar Lawrence’s letter addressed towards him explaining the plan that him and Juliet came up with has been held up and not delivered. In his state of confusion after he is informed that Juliet is dead, he asks, “Hath thou no letters to me from the friar?” (5.1. 32), to which Balthasar answers, “No, my good lord” (5.1. 33)., unaware of the plan and that the delivery of the letter has been unexpectedly postponed. These quotes show the lack of connection and communication between Romeo, Balthasar, and Friar Lawrence, which resulted in Romeo going to Juliet’s tomb, meeting Paris there and fighting him to the death, discover Juliet ‘dead’ and killing himself, and Juliet discovering Romeo dead and actually killing herself. If the letter had been there on time - or if another person, such as Balthasar, was informed of the plan in the first place - these deaths could have easily been