Friar Lawrence's Role in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

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Friar Lawrence's Role in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

Friar Lawrence is an intelligent herbalist with great knowledge of

plants and a father figure to Romeo. He is the confidant to Romeo and

Romeo would rather come to Friar Lawrence than to his father. Friar

Lawrence is a pivotal person in Romeos world. Romeo comes to the Friar

to marry Romeo and Juliet and after this he kills Tybalt and is

banished. He then relies on the Friar to sort out the problem and to

rejoin Romeo and Juliet. The Friar is aware of the feuding between the

two families and when Romeo comes to see whether the Friar with marry

Romeo and Juliet the Friar thinks he can turn the "households rancour

to pure love"[1]. The Friar thinks he is vital to the joining of the

two families as he is asked to give advice by members of all families:

Romeo, Juliet, Paris and the Nurse.

It could be argued that Friar Lawrence is partly responsible for the

deaths of Romeo and Juliet as he performs many actions throughout the

play that speed up the fated demise of Romeo and Juliet, including

their marriage, even though he is doing this with good intentions. He

is not entirely to blame though as the Friar did not kill Tybalt and

did not abandon Juliet when things began to go wrong, nor did he start

the feud between the two families or have a hand in fate.

We first see him in Act 2 Scene 3 where he is talking about plants and

their seemingly magical properties and displays a great knowledge of

plants. This information is important, as it is needed to believe

events at the end of the play. Romeo then rushes in explaining that he

doesn't love Rosaline anymore:

"With Ro...

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...cene 1 Lines 72-76

[14] Act 4 Scene 1 Line 76

[15] Act 4 Scene 1 line 94

[16] Act 4 Scene 1 Line 98

[17] Act 4 Scene 1 Line 106

[18] Act 4 Scene 1 Line 118

[19] Act 5 Scene 3 Lines 153-154

[20] Act 5 Scene 3 Lines 158-159

[21] Act 2 Scene 2 Line 127

[22] Act 2 Scene 2 Line 118

[23] Act 2 Scene 2 Line 12

[24] Act 2 Scene 3 Lines 66-68

[25] Act 3 Scene 1 Lines 136-137

[26] Act 5 Scene 1 Lines 18-19

[27] Act 5 Scene 1 Lines 60-61

[28] Act 4 Scene 1 Line 121

[29] Act 3 Scene 5 Lines 161-162

[30] Act 1 Scene 1 Line 69

[31] Act 1 Scene 5 Lines 68-69

[32] Act 3 Scene 5 Lines 217-218

[33] Act 3 Scene 1 Lines 175-177

[34] Prologue Line 6

[35] Act 3 Scene 1 Line 136

[36] Act 1 Scene 4 Lines 107-108 + 112-114

[37] Act 5 Scene 1 Line 24

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