Who Is The Friar Responsible For The Deaths Of Romeo And Juliet

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When a tragedy occurs, who is the most to blame? The fate, the society or the human conduct? In the play "Romeo and Juliet", written by William Shakespeare, the protagonists Romeo and Juliet who were from two families “Montague” and “Capulet” which never get along with each other, both fell in love in the ball. However, because of unthoughtful pieces of advice gave by Friar Laurence, the pressure of the feud between the Montague and Capulet, as well as the unwise actions of their own at last caused their tragic death after their wedding. Therefore, the intense, but the unthoughtful and tender love of them seemed not suppose to …show more content…

However, tragedy only befalls those who was not thoughtful of their actions, it is a result of human actions rather than fate. In the play “Romeo and Juliet”, many people shared the responsibility of the misfortune Romeo and Juliet experienced. Friar Laurence, the adviser of Romeo and Juliet, is one of the characters who held most of the responsibilities for Romeo and Juliet’s tragic ends. There is no doubt that Friar never had an intention to bring misfortune to Romeo and Juliet, however, he made decisions that pushed the couple to danger. When the Friar agreed to perform the secret wedding as Romeo asked, he said: "In one respect I'll thy assistant be,/For this alliance may so happy prove/To turn your households' rancor to pure love."(Shakespeare, 2.3.97-99) He was hoping that the marriage of Romeo and Juliet would finally cause an end to the feud between their families. In such way, although Friar understood that the two families “Montague” and “Capulet” never get along with each other, he still encouraged Romeo and Juliet to get marry secretly, instead of letting the young couple to realize the difficulties or the barrier between them. In addition, Friar came up with the idea of using the potion to fake Juliet's death, at the same …show more content…

On the day of his wedding, Friar Laurence insisted him to take things slowly, but still, Romeo played a deaf ear to the advice. After the wedding, Romeo got into the fight with Tybalt who is the cousin of Juliet, and killed Tybalt later on for a revenge of his friend Mercutio's death. He did not thoroughly think about the consequences of his impulse actions with his new identity of Juliet’s husband. As the husband of Juliet, he should consider himself as a part of the Capulet family, who should never harm any of the family members. As a result of killing Tybalt, he got banished out of Verona, which triggered the series of irreversible consequence to occur. When Romeo received the news of Juliet's death, he should connect with Friar Laurence who knew more details about Juliet. If he did, he would have known the plan of Juliet 's fake death and made the right decision of not to kill himself. For these reasons and more not mentioned, Romeo was necessarily responsible for their tragedy without any