William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

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Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet is a play filled with lots of irony. It contains verbal irony, dramatic irony, however it is most famous for its ending witch is full of situational irony. The irony that I am describing is in Act 5, Scene 3. This is the climax of the play as Romeo and Juliet both kill each other for each other by a mere accident. This accident however could have been avoided. I believe that this story could have had a much happier ending if Friar Laurence would have thought of the consequences before he made his actions.

When Juliet approached Friar Laurence he did not take even one moment to consider what could go wrong. He could have accidentally given her too much of the medicine and could have actually killed her. It is also possible to have given her the wrong medicine and it could have been fatal. Now those are the things he did do, however there were some things that he did not do. Friar Laurence did not deliver his message to Romeo in person. If he would have done this he would have made this play have a happy ending.

The nurse aside from breaking Juliet’s trust was not responsible for the two deaths of Romeo and Juliet. She could almost foresee an evil fate for Juliet and tries to entice her to marry Paris instead of Romeo. The nurse in the play was a seeming good soul with few bad actions. On the other hand so was the Friar, but he made the poison that Juliet drank which in turn ended it all. The Friar was trying to break the feud between the two families and his intentions were good for how our modern day eyes see them. However back in the Elizabethan times only the arranged marriage would be proper, not the eloped marriage. The Friar seemed to be a very good and gentle person, however if he was trying to break the Capulet-Montague feud why did he give poison to Juliet to make her parents think that she was dead?

When Juliet accepted this potion from the Friar she put all of her trust and her life in his hands. The Friar should have made sure that Romeo received his message, the Friar did not even tell the messenger that the letter was “not nice and full of charge” and was “of great import” until after he found out that it had not been delivered.

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