Friar Lawrence In William Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet

Such finish two young lovers had endured at a young age. Juliet, a girl who has never dated, falls in love with her adversary. Romeo, an immature, heartbroken boy who lusted over Juliet. They both wanted to get married behind their parents’ back, and succeeded with tragic deaths. At the end, who’s fault really was it? In my opinion, this tragic ending is a cause of Friar Lawrence’s many missteps throughout the play. I say this not only as a result of him marrying them, but he also partly did it to his advantage and gave Juliet a potion that made her look dead. What kind of religious peacemaker does that?

Indeed, Lawrence married Romeo and Juliet for the families to get along (Act 2, Scene 3, Lines 90-92), but if it wasn’t for that marriage both teenagers would’ve most likely still been alive. Lawrence being the peacemaker and someone who was sought out for advice should have thought of everyone, not just the convenience. If Lawrence would’ve denied the marriage, both Romeo and Juliet would have waited and maybe sought advice from their Nurses, making their marriage not so secretive. Overall, there were lots of things the Friar could’ve done to prevent that marriage seeing how it wasn’t the best idea.

A teenager (Romeo) comes up to him and says he wants to marry the daughter of his family’s worst enemy (Act 2, Scene 3, Lines 87-94). Other than agreeing, he should have given Romeo advice and told him why that was a dreadful idea. At the end used the marriage as a way for the families to stop feuding. There were thousands of other solutions he could come up with for the families to get along. Instead, he went the easy way out and used the teenagers’