Examples Of Who Is To Blame In Romeo And Juliet

Who’s to Blame? The timeless play of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare illustrates the dramatic yet romantic tale of the two lovers, Romeo and Juliet. Throughout the play, many events and decisions made by various characters snowball into much bigger consequences than first anticipated. The many tragedies that occur in the play are caused by these poor choices although some of the people who made them are more at blame than others. There are many people in the play that make these types of decisions, however, the characters that stand out the most are Friar Lawernece, the Nurse, and Peter. First at stake, we have Friar Lawrence who deserves major blame. He is young Romeo’s Friar who Romeo visits to have confession. Lawrence studies

He is a young boy who is a servant of the Capulet family and he often works with the Nurse. One day, Peter is tasked with inviting every person on a list to a Capulet house party, however, Peter is illiterate and cannot read the names on the paper. Just as he is trying to decipher the list of names, Benvolio and Romeo walk onto the stage and that is when Peter asks Romeo to read the list to him. Peter helplessly says, “But I've been sent to find the people whose names are written on this list, and I can't read! I'll never find them on my own. I've got to find somebody who knows how to read to help me” (SparkNotes Editors 31). After hearing that Rosaline is on the invite list, Benvolio convinces Romeo to attend the party with him where Romeo first lays his eyes on Juliet and completely forgets about Rosaline. This incident isn’t Peter’s fault since the poor boy cannot read for himself and he was just trying to do his job. Another time Peter was just doing what he was told was when the Nurse was sent to look for Romeo who had a message for her to give to Juliet. The message had specific direction on how Romeo planned to get married to his beloved Juliet. Peter came along to assist the Nurse and help find Romeo to receive the message. After being requested by the Nurse, Peter simply states, “I’m at your service” (SparkNotes Editors 115). This goes to show that Peter truly is guiltless since, again, he is just doing what he has been assigned to