Home Test – Introduction to English Literature – Semester 3

EKPEH NUFUGBE FERA

Kokou Adevou

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT - SEMESTER 3

INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH LITERATURE

TOPIC:

CONDUCT A CRITICAL APPRECIATION ON THE CHARACTER OF

FRIAR LAWRENCE IN SHAKESPEARE’S ROMEO AND JULIET.

Who is Friar Lawrence?

Friar Lawrence is a Franciscan Priest, who lives in Verona, the same the
place where the story of Romeo and Juliet takes place.

He is the character that had a great connection with the tragic destiny of
the love story between Romeo, the son of Montague and Juliet, the daughter of
Capulet. Remembering that Montague’s and Capulet’s are enemies.

What is Friar Lawrence Role in the play?

Friar Lawrence plays a crucial role in this play because he is the one who
married Romeo and Juliet in his cell, in the hope that the feud between
Montague’s and the Capulet’s will end.

He shows at many times that he is Romeo friend. For example, when

Romeo, banished from Verona after killing Tybalt, Juliet’s cousin, finds in his cell a
fugitive hiding place before moving to exile. The protection he gives to Romeo is
dangerous but he dares it, in the knowledge of the troubles he could have if
Romeo is found there, and this act of hiding Romeo can be seen as a abuse of
Verona’s people trust in him, because as a priest he cannot be suspected to
protect a murderer. In the other hand this protection gives to Romeo the luck to
avoid an public execution for murder, even if the same sad ending, we mean
death, stands on the path at the end of the story. Romeo dies, Juliet and Paris
too.

Friar Lawrence, who initially do not take Romeo’s love for Juliet seriously,
due to Romeo old obsession with Rosaline, later unwillingly played a part in the
two lovers deaths when he first puts Juliet, with Juliet’s agreement, to sleep with
a deathlike potion which fools Romeo into thinking Juliet was dead, leading to his
suicide by self administered poison followed by Juliet’s death after her discovery
that her Romeo is dead.
 Home Test – Introduction to English Literature – Semester 3

All this fatal turning of the story, because of a certain letter that is supposed to
explain to Romeo in exile that his wife was not dead, never reaches his final
destination.

After noticing his mistake, he runs to the place where Juliet is bared, where
unexpectedly he found the bodies without lives of Romeo and Paris lying on the
ground near Juliet previous fake grave which becomes finally the real one.

What happens to him?

At the end of the play, despite his own admission of guilt for the lovers’
death, Escalus, The Prince of Verona forgives him. And most fortunately, the two
families end up their quarrel, and in a certain view, the hope of Friar Lawrence
when marrying Romeo and Juliet realizes.