Romeo and Juliet is just another one of Shakespeare's plays about tragedy. It is about two lovers who commit suicide when their fighting families prevent them from being together. .
But it is not this tragedy that I will analyse today, it is in fact what Friar Lawrence had to do with the suicide and if he is guilty or not guilty as an accessory to murder.
I will be taking the defence side in an attempt to prove Friar Lawrence not guilty.
First of all, in the play written by Shakespeare himself, Friar Lawrence does not play a rather large role in the play, but that doesn't mean that it is not important. Friar Lawrence is a controversial character in the play, which makes him difficult to analyse. If it were not for him, the sleeping potion would not have been given to Juliet thus making Romeo kill himself. But please keep in mind, that Friar Lawrence is a good man as he was only trying to help. He felt that it was in the best interest to give Juliet the drug, so perhaps the families would stop fighting, but that was not to be. If one little thing changed, if Romeo did get the notice, if Romeo didn't kill Paris or if Romeo was never banished from the town, then the ending would have been a traditional happy ending, but this play is a tragedy and the end describes this.
So why do people believe that Friar Lawrence is an accessory to these two horrible murders? It is understandable to walk in off the street and get half the story and see that it was him you supplied the potion, but he only offered the potion in the interest of Juliet, and Juliet decided to take it. She was in no way obliged to take the potion; he was only trying to help. It was ultimately her decision to except it or not. Now I don't agree that this was the right thing to do, as anything could happen to Juliet while she was unconscious. I ask you this jury, put yourselves in Friar Lawrence's shoes, and tell me that if you believed you could help someone you really cared about, you wouldn't have done the same thing.
