Had Romeo actually received the message that Friar John was supposed to deliver to him, the tragic ending of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet would very likely have been averted. To understand this hypothetical situation, we must first consider what actually did happen...
After Romeo kills Tybalt and is banished from Verona, and after Juliet learns that Lord Capulet is going to force her to marry Paris, Juliet visits Friar Laurence in desperate need of assistance. Together, they devise a plan: Juliet will take a drug that mimics the appearance of death. After her family has finished mourning, Friar Laurence will have her body taken to the Capulet's crypt, where she will awaken from her slumber and meet up with Romeo, who will have received word of this plan and snuck back into Verona to rescue his young bride.
Juliet takes the drug and fakes her death as intended, and Friar Laurence sends Friar John to deliver a letter to Romeo that details the arrangement. However, when Friar John re-appears, he has tragic news. He was delayed in reaching Mantua and was unable to deliver the letter to Romeo due to a quarantine that was placed upon him:
...And finding him, the searchers of the town,
Suspecting that we both were in a house
Where the infectious pestilence did reign,
Seal'd up the doors, and would not let us forth...
Because Romeo has not received the letter informing him that Juliet's death wasn't real, he instead learns from Benvolio that Juliet has actually died. Heartbroken, Romeo buys poison from an apothecary and rushes to the crypt, where he drinks the poison and dies at Juliet's side. Juliet wakes to discover her newly dead husband and so, too, kills herself.
Had Friar John managed to deliver the message, Romeo would have not rashly killed himself and would have been able to carry out the escape plan as it was designed; provided that they weren't caught sneaking out of Verona, Romeo and Juliet would have had a chance at the happy and long marriage that they so craved.
No comments:
Post a Comment