The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet Essay

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Who is Responsible for the Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet?


In William Shakespeare’s Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, many of the authority figures in the play are responsible for Romeo’s and Juliet’s deaths. While Romeo asserts that he is “fortune’s fool” and while the chorus tells the audience that these are “star-crossed lovers” whose love was doomed from the beginning, the reality of the situation is that the Prince, the fathers of the two families, and the priest all bear some responsibility in the tragic outcome.



The context of the play is very important for understanding how the authority figures could have prevented the tragic ending. When the play begins, there is a tremendous brawl in the streets that is started by the House of Montague and the House of Capulet. The Prince arrives to stop the brawling and restore peace—and in doing so he drops a subtle hint at his own failing in this story: “Three civil brawls bred of an airy word / By thee, old Capulet, and Montague, / Have thrice disturbed the quiet of our streets” (1.1.91-93). The Prince admits that this fighting is not the first time it has happened—nor even the second. It is the third time these families have caused a riot in the streets of Verona, and even still the Prince is not doing anything to check it other than making threats.

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Why he has allowed the fighting to go on so long or even to reach this extent. The expression goes: three strikes and you’re out. Yet here the Prince is giving the families one more and demonstrating his own laxity when it comes to governance and instilling the rule of law. Instead of standing up to the families, he lets them off with a warning. Yet by going easy on them all this time, he is showing a dangerous passive-aggressive streak, so that when death does occur (Mercutio killed by Tybalt and then Tybalt killed by Romeo), the Prince refuses to hear any talk of peace or mercy. He goes from being soft, soft, soft to being hard and cruel—which only further exacerbates the problems and the tension.



Of course, the fathers of the two families are equally to blame as well. Montague calls for his sword in the first scene instead of calling for peace, and Capulet pushes his daughter into a hasty….....

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Works Cited

Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. http://www.folgerdigitaltexts.org/html/Rom.html

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