Comparing The Deaths Of Friar Lawrence In William Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet

Words: 949
Pages: 4

When we look at the play “Romeo and Juliet”, there are many unfortunate factors that this play had such as tragedy, death, forbidden love, and secrecy. But, these tragedies could simply have been prevented by one man. The person that had the biggest impact on Romeo and Juliet’s untimely deaths was Friar Lawrence. He is the most responsible for their deaths because of his secrecy, cowardliness, and miscommunication. To sum up, if Friar Lawrence had handled the situation differently, both Romeo and Juliet’s lives could have been spared, but instead they died very tragic and sad deaths.
One of the main reasons why Friar Lawrence was the person that had the biggest impact on Romeo and Juliet’s deaths is because of his secrecy. In the story, after Romeo meets Juliet and they both fall in love, he immediately wants to get married and goes to Friar Lawrence to ask him to marry him and Juliet. In Act 2, Scene 3, Lines 87-92, Friar Lawrence states, “Oh, she knew very well that you were acting like you were in love without
…show more content…
After Juliet finds Romeo and Paris dead, she is overcome with many sad emotions. In Act 5, Scene 3, Lines 164-168, Friar Lawrence announces, “Come, come away. Your husband lies dead there, and Paris too. Come, I’ll place you among the sisterhood of holy nuns. Don’t wait to ask questions. The watch is coming. Come, let’s go, good Juliet, I don’t dare stay any longer.” Instead of staying with Juliet to comfort her through this time, he runs away because he feared that he would be caught by the watch and would have to confess how he helped Romeo and Juliet. Right after the Friar leaves, Juliet has no hope, and stabs herself with Romeo’s dagger and dies so that she can be with Romeo for all eternity. In the end, Friar Lawrence’s cowardliness played a big role in why Juliet decided to kill herself after seeing Romeo