Mercutio, Friar Lawrence, And The Apothecary's

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In the vast collection of romantic and tear-jerking performances, the outcome of a story is always the product of the characters’ decisions. Romeo and Juliet, the main characters in a renowned tragedy, are the victims of others’ adverse behavior and both commit suicide due to their anguish when their fates separate them. One may deduce through a careful inspection into the impulsive, immature, and impressionable attributes that certain characters possess that the two teens’ tragic ultimatum is not simply the result of a dark twist of fate. The untimely deaths of the two lovers are the consequence of the unfortunate choices that the people around them make. In Shakespeare’s famous tragedy Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio, Friar Lawrence, and the apothecary’s …show more content…

Unsure of what to do with herself, Juliet seeks out Friar Lawrence for assistance after the prince banishes Romeo because she feels the miserable desire to end her life. The friar provides her with a sleeping potion so that she can stage her death and run away with her love, Romeo. The friar first explains his solution to Juliet, “If, rather than to marry County Paris, / Thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself, / Then is it likely thou wilt undertake / A thing like death to chide away this shame, / That cop’st with death himself to ‘scape from it; / And if thou darest, I’ll give thee remedy,” (4.1.72-77). Friar Lawrence sends out a messenger to let Romeo know about his plan for Juliet to drink a sleeping potion and pretend that she is dead, but a Montague servant tells Romeo that Juliet died before Friar Lawrence’s messenger arrives, and Romeo returns to Verona full of misery to enact his own death. In the case that Friar Lawrence chooses to be more ethical in order to avoid giving Juliet a sleeping potion, and instead tries giving her advice on how to cure her woes, she will not be able to feign her …show more content…

Help, help. My lady’s dead,” (4.5.17). Friar Lawrence’s lack of responsibility prompts Juliet’s family and the nurse to become distraught when her caretaker concludes that she is dead. Not knowing about Friar Lawrence and Juliet’s plan, Romeo believes that Juliet is dead because the potion from the friar puts her into a deep sleep, so Romeo commits suicide after deciding that he cannot live without her. Friar Lawrence’s lack of care as a mentor brings about a dark departure for Romeo and Juliet. The apothecary’s actions alter the hapless lovers’ fate because he displays despairing and desperate behavior in the choices that he makes, leaving no consideration for ethical decisions. Distraught, Romeo calls for the indigent apothecary, requesting a mortal drug that can kill any chosen victim swiftly. The apothecary boasts its lethality when he states, “Put this in any liquid thing you will / And drink it off, and if you had the strength / Of twenty men, it would dispatch you straight,”

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