Romeo and Juliet Essay

               The characters in Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare, are very well developed and complex individuals. Three of the characters really stand out in this book for the above reason. They are Romeo, Juliet, and Friar Lawrence.  Romeo, Juliet, and Friar Lawrence all have  personalities and unique traits that contribute a lot to the tragedy that ensues.

                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.