We’ve finally made it to the inevitable end of the play
where pretty much everyone has died. First, I think that it was ridiculous for
Romeo and Juliet to kill themselves for each other after only knowing one
another for a couple of days at the most. How much can you really know about a
person after only a couple of days?? It reminds me of reality TV shows like Married
at First Sight where literally the first time they are seeing their spouse is
when they are at the altar. Not surprisingly, a lot of these marriages don’t
end well because they are complete strangers, pretty much just like Romeo and
Juliet. At least on the TV show they have a bunch of professionals to help
guide them through the process. Romeo and Juliet pretty much just had Friar
Lawrence. I don’t think their marriage had high chances of making it that long
had they actually managed to stay alive, simply because they didn’t know each
other. For all Juliet knew, Romeo could have been a serial killer.
 |
| What Romeo could have been |
So much heartache could have been avoided had Romeo and
Juliet just listened to their parents in the first place and also if it weren’t
for Friar Lawrence. In the face of crippling parental control over their lives,
Romeo and Juliet turned to Friar Lawrence who I have come to see as the
well-meaning cool uncle. You know, the one who lets you do stuff your parents
would normally never let you do. He also kind of reminds of Regina George's mom in Mean Girls just a little more grounded.
Despite his good intentions, he had a direct
role in Romeo and Juliet’s deaths. When coming up with such an elaborate plan
that deals with “death” it’s probably best that both parties are made aware of the plan at the same exact time. He should have known that Romeo’s dramatic reaction to everything probably would have made this plan a horrible idea if the tiniest thing went wrong. I get that he was trying to be sympathetic to their cause but as the only adult they really trusted in the situation, I think he could have come up with a better plan or at least have given better advice.
It’s kind of ridiculous how easily the Capulet’s and Montague’s long family feud is remedied in just 10 lines of dialogue. It took their children DYING to finally come to their senses?? If they could forgive each other that easily, why didn’t they just forgive each other a long time ago? Absolutely ridiculous.
 |
| The Montague's and Capulet's today |
Okay, first off I love your use of graphics to get your point across. They were perfectly chosen and made me laugh.
ReplyDeleteSecond, I think a lot of people when they first read the play don't necessarily think about what kind of role the Friar plays in Romeo and Juliet's respective deaths. He does have a pretty big responsibility in what happens, and we the readers never find out his reaction to being responsible, or if he even feels responsible for what he causes. It's a little neglectful for the cool-uncle role that he gets. Like you said, he could have given better advice, or something not involving death which would elicit such an emotional response. Although, I must say, death is a powerful and strange occurrence emotionally. It can mend families or break families apart at the seams, and its not really controllable which happens. Death is a time of many, many emotions, so its not entirely unreasonable given how many feuding families we find in history to think their grudge makes no sense but that in the moment, they were blinded by emotions made clear in the death of their futures.
I love the Mean Girls reference! I agree with what you said about the Montague's and the Capulet's! It still frustrates me that no one knows what they're fighting about. For all they know it could've been something stupid like eating the last loaf of bread. Romeo and Juliet definitely could have avoided all of this by having a calm and reasonable conversation with their parents about wanting to get married. Maybe then everyone would've still been alive! Even if their parents didn’t give them their blessing, they probably would’ve went behind their backs to get married anyway. It didn't have to go that far to the point where they had to kill themselves. In the end, I guess you could say that “love conquers all”, literally.
ReplyDelete