Friar
Lawrence is a very helpful and wise man. He agreed to help Romeo marry Juliet,
even though he knew that it was wrong because Romeo was supposed to marry
Rosaline. Friar Lawrence also knew that Romeo’s parents would disapprove of him
marrying a Capulet, and the same for Juliet’s parents; they would not approve of her marrying a
Montague, especially since they had already promised Prince Paris that she
would marry him. He married them anyway, because he didn’t want to get in the
way of true love. Another example of him being a wise and helpful man is when
he helped Juliet trick her parents into thinking that she was dead so that she
wouldn’t have to marry Paris, or betray Romeo. He gave her a potion so that
would be in a deep sleep, and she would look like she was dead. Unfortunately,
this plan kind-of backfired because Romeo never got the message that she wasn’t
really dead, and he thought that she really was dead.
Juliet’s
desires and tendency to be overdramatic makes the story unfold in a very interesting
way that makes you never want to put the book down. In the book, Juliet usually
got her way and she was always very overdramatic. An example of Juliet being
very overdramatic was her monologue in the beginning of Act 2 Scene 5. Juliet
has an eighteen line monologue about being anxious because the Nurse wasn’t
back yet to tell her Romeo’s message. In the movie, which we watched in class,
this monologue was acted out very dramatically and it seemed to drag on. In the
end of the book, Juliet didn’t want to marry Paris, so instead of just marrying
Paris, like her parents wanted her to, she pretended to be dead! She said, “O,
bid me leap, rather than marry Paris, From off the battlements of any tower, Or
walk in thievish ways, or bid me lurk Where serpents are. Chain me with roaring
bears, Or hide me nightly in a charnel house, O’er covered quite with dead
men’s rattling bones, With reeky shanks and yellow *chapless* skulls. Or bid me
go into a new-made grave And hide me with a dead man in his *shroud* (Things
that to hear them told have made me tremble), And I will do it without fear or
doubt, To live an unstained wife to my sweet love.” This proves my idea that Juliet finds ways to
get out of things, and gets what she wants.
Romeo's
role is very important in this play because he is one of the main reasons that
the play turns out the way that it does. If Romeo wasn’t a part of this play,
then there wouldn’t have even been a play! He is the reason that both of them
die in the end: therefore, it is called the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. His
characteristics contribute to this play because he was very persistent and he
didn’t give up trying until he got to marry Juliet. If he hadn’t been so persistent
and set in his ways, him and Juliet probably wouldn’t have gotten married, and
Juliet would have ended up marrying Paris like her parents intended her to, and
Romeo would have married Rosaline.
In
conclusion, the roles of Friar Lawrence, Juliet, and Romeo are crucial to the
play. If it wasn’t for their very important roles and complex traits, the play
would have turned out very differently than William Shakespeare wrote it.
