Dishonesty in Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

An act of dishonesty carried out by haste can result in very unlikely consequences to an individual’s life. Firstly, the dishonesty of Friar Lawrence in choosing to marry Romeo and Juliet without the knowledge or permission of their parents, results in undesirable after effects. Secondly, the sudden cessation of support from Juliet’s Nurse, to continue the relationship of Romeo and Juliet causes harm to Juliet’s feelings as a young lover and contributes to their fatality. Finally, Romeo’s haste to marry Juliet to prove his intentions, accounts for a future filled with even more hasty decisions. In Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, the dishonesty of Friar Lawrence and Nurse and the haste of Romeo and Juliet, results in the deaths of the young lovers.

First of all, the dishonesty of Friar Lawrence, who married Romeo and Juliet, foreshadows the probability of his continuity to take even more insincere measures in manipulating the consequences faced by the young lovers. The Friar carries out an erroneous act of secretly marrying them under the church’s license without manifesting it in the public and encourages them to deceive their parents by keeping their relationship to themselves. He then agrees to marry Juliet and Paris, a county, and plans on faking her death, in order to avoid the marriage instead of revealing the truth about Romeo and Juliet right away. “I hear thou must, and nothing may prorogue it,/On Thursday next be married to this County.” (4.1.49-50) In short, various incidents in the lives of Romeo and Juliet, controlled by Friar Lawrence’s cowardice result in undesirable circumstances.

Secondly, the imbecile wet nurse of Juliet plays an unsupportive parental role during Juliet’s misery of losing Romeo in ba...

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...re her fake dead body is kept, and drinks the poison he brought with him, hastily, without giving it a second thought, assuming that Juliet was dead and that he might not be able to live without her. However, Juliet wakes up at the moment when Romeo falls dead on her lap and she exclaims, “Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end” (5.3.167), signifying the untimely death of Romeo that occurred due to his unnecessary haste.

The suicides of Romeo and Juliet reflect their hasty and impulsive decisions as well as the dishonesty of Friar Lawrence and the Nurse. Romeo’s haste in drinking the venomous poison, Friar’s cowardice in handling the consequences as well as the Nurse’s choice of standing against the relationship of Romeo and Juliet contribute equally to their fatal end. Therefore, dishonesty and haste can result in undesirable circumstances to any individual.