Friar Lawrence In William Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet

William Shakespeare’s tragic play, Romeo and Juliet, is a story about two teenagers from feuding families falling in love and, in the end, deciding to take their own lives to be with each other after death. There are many people in the story that could be held accountable for the deaths of Romeo and Juliet. In spite of everyone, the single person most responsible for the deaths of Romeo and Juliet is Friar Lawrence because he married the two without informing anyone and came up with the flawed plan that eventually killed them. Primarily, Friar Lawrence is to blame for Romeo and Juliet’s deaths because he decided to marry them one day after they first met, as well as performing it without informing both of their parents. Friar Lawrence marrying

Juliet cries, “Tell me not, Friar, that thou hear’st of this, unless thou tell me how I may prevent it. If in thy wisdom thou canst give no help, do thou but call my resolution wise, and with this knife I’ll help it presently.”(4.1.51-55). The young and desperate Juliet comes to the Friar for advice, and if it does not help her she threatens to kill herself. The older, wiser Friar should know better than to give lackluster advice to her. Yet, he decides to tell Juliet, “ Take thou this vial, being then in bed, and this distilled liquor drink thou off, when presently through all thy veins shall run a cold and drowsy humor, for no pulse shall keep his native progress, but surcease.”(4.1.94-98). Friar Lawrence’s advice to her is to drink a potion that will make her come off as dead to the entire town of Verona, he will send a letter to Romeo and tell him to come and save Juliet so they can run away and be together. His plan is very flawed with lots of room for anything to go wrong, but that is never taken into consideration since Juliet feels as if she has no other option. Juliet takes the potion and her family believes that she is dead. During this time Friar Lawrence sends a letter to Romeo off with his fellow Friar explaining the plan. He never took into account that the word may spread to Romeo quicker than his letter, and it did.