Hey everybody, how we doing? I am surprisingly excited to talk about Romeo and Juliet right now because I personally think acts
3, 4, and 5 are utterly insane. After having Shakespeare thrown in my face all
throughout high school and even late middle school, I have finally found an
interest in one of his plays. I am not necessarily sure whether I even like
Romeo and Juliet, but I definitely find it compelling.
Friar Lawrence: I
find this gentleman to be very, very suspicious. I think Juliet is insane for
even considering Friar Lawrence’s reckless plan for uniting her and Romeo. These
characters did not live in a world where you could practically spawn a private
conversation to explain things to people like what we have in cell phones
today. Trusting a hand-written message to successfully transfer to the hands of
Romeo is very irresponsible, especially for a man that Shakespeare writes to
appear as a wise man.
Plot twist: Shakespeare
shows no obvious evidence to convey that Friar Lawrence is evil, but maybe I missed something? Maybe Shakespeare hid a side
story (like Star Wars’ Rogue One) of Friar Lawrence in his home that gave more
of his backstory to prove that he is evil and wants trouble and death for the
immature couple.
The Death/End: I
find Romeo to be one really dumb guy. First, he is in love with a very young
girl (gross), and he proves how immature he is in the very beginning of the
story. In the beginning of the story, it is apparent that he is head over heels
in love with a woman named Rosaline. Romeo is quite devastated that Rosaline
does not love him back. It is mind boggling to think that after a few hours of
mourning the forbidden love of Rosaline, he falls back in love with another
woman! The worst part is that he even goes as far as to kill himself over the
young girl he was in love with for a few days. I love that there was an epic
sword fight scene at the end between the two Juliet lovers. Although the reader
naturally roots for Romeo, I find myself feeling bad for Paris. Paris was very
dumb and even arrogant, but he never did anything out of line in my eyes. I
believe he truly was in love with Juliet and it is a damn shame that he got ‘played’
all throughout the story.
Zak,
ReplyDeleteI found your blog post very interesting from the moment I read the title. I never thought of the Friar as a bad guy. I actually saw him as one of the more wholesome people in the play. He was accepting of all, no matter their last names, and condoned the marriage on the basis of uniting the two feuding families.
That being said, after reading your post I do see your point of view. His plans were less than brilliant, and maybe it is all his fault. I would rather not blame him though; I blame the dead teenagers for their own foolishness.
Thanks for the solid meme. I see the resemblance.
Great post!
Hannah
I never really thought of Friar Lawrence as the bad guy but it does make sense. He seemed like he purposely delayed getting the note to Romeo maybe trying to get some kind of feud between the two. Paris did seem like he just got caught up in a ridiculous situation where he had no control in anything that happened. But who knows, maybe Friar Lawrence was in it to help them.
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