No One is Responsible For the Death of Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet is an prodigiously well know tragedy by the well acclaimed author William Shakespear. It is one of the most referenced and cloned plays out there spawning many movies and novels based on the story. It is a enjoyable and easy read for anyone over 13 and yet it can prove to be very hard to interpret the finer points of it. One of these is “Who was the person responsible for the passing of Romeo and Juliet.”

The first factor in the sequence of events that ultimately lead to the young couples deaths is the obvious feud between the two families, ‘Montague’ and ‘Capulet’ The two families condemn each other so immensely that they fight each other on sight. This feud went on over such a massive time span that they forgot what they were fighting over. Romeo was a Montague and Juliet was a Capulet, this obviously made Romeo and Juliet think that their relationship would be frowned upon by the heads of the separate families. This caused Romeo and Juliet to become overly cautious and secretive.

The second factor was the fact that Old Man Capulet (or Lord Capulet) was trying to get Juliet to marry Paris. Paris first appears with Capulet, who is saying that he and Montague ought to be able to keep the peace. Paris makes a polite comment about that, then asks, "But now, my lord, what say you to my suit?" A “suit" is an important request. Paris’s suit is Juliet's hand in marriage. Lord Capulet replies that Juliet is really too young, but Paris disagrees. Eventually Lord Capulet agrees and decides to (force) wed Paris to Juliet in a desperate attempt to ‘save’ the Capulet name. Juliet disagrees with this and instead tries to avoid marriage with Paris at all costs.

Friar Lawrence has a momentous role in the sequence consid...

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... Juliet and finds her unconscious, he doesn’t know she is not dead and takes a portion of poison and dies. Friar Lawrence appears briefly saying "Saint Francis be my speed! how oft to-night / Have my old feet stumbled at graves!" this means "May Saint Francis help me," Juliet wakes up, hoping to find Romeo, instead see sees Friar Lawrence too which see says "O comfortable friar, where is my lord? / I do remember well where I should be, / And there I am. Where is my Romeo?" She finds her Romeo dead; she takes Romeo’s dagger and stabs herself to death.

In the end it all boils down to a series of events that lead to the calamitous ending of the young couple. In conclusion no-one is responsible, yet everyone is responsible. No one was directly responsible. Instead of the Friar or the Feud, we get shown that it all comes down to the environment that the couple was in.