Sunday, April 17, 2011

Who assists Romeo and Juliet in their secret love, and is this right to do so?William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

In Romeo and Juliet, the Nurse and
Friar Laurence assist Romeo and Juliet in their love relationship. At the feast for
Juliet, the Nurse speaks to the Montagues and tells Romeo who Juliet is,
adding,



I
tell you, he that can lay hold of her


Shall have the
chinks. (I,v,111-112)



Later,
she reveals to Juliet the identity of Romeo, but hurries her home.  After Romeo has
received Juliet's promise of love from the Nurse in Act II, he talks with the Nurse,
telling her to instruct Juliet to come to the cell of Friar Laurence where they will be
wed; the Nurse dissembles for her by saying that Juliet has gone to make her
confession. Later, after Romeo weds Juliet, he visits her chamber where they consummate
their marriage while the Nurse keeps watch for Lady
Capulet.


While the Nurse is probably in indigent relative
given a position in the Capulet home, as was customary in the fourteenth century, she
certainly should be loyal to this family.  So, knowing of the attraction that Juliet has
for Romeo, the Nurse is blantantly disloyal to Lord and Lady Capulet by not informing
them.  Clearly, she oversteps her position when she conspires with Juliet to arrange the
wedding at Friar's Laurence's cell.


Similarly, Friar
Laurence is complicit with Romeo and Juliet.  He performs the marriage ceremony for them
without notifying the parents;he sends Romeo to Mantua after he is banished with
instructions that he will notify Romeo when it is safe for him to return; he contrives
the fatal plan of having Juliet seem dead so that she will not have to marry Paris; this
plan is made also so that parents will be overjoyed when she revives.  Unfortunately,
his plans go awry when a plague strikes Mantua and the friar's servant Balthasar cannot
reach Romeo.  The friar also abandons Juliet in the tomb as she revives from the potion
he has given her.


As a friar, Friar Laurence has taken vows
which remove him from the temporal world.  For him to be deceitful to the Montagues and
Capulets and marry the lovers secretly is clearly wrong.  His interference with the
lives of these two is surely beyond the boundaries of his vows.  And, his failure to
reveal to the parents what has transpired is deceitful and wrong.  It is also tragically
wrong that he runs from Juliet when she regains consciousness in the
tomb.   

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