Friar Lawrence

• 'the earth, that's nature's mother, is her tomb... grave that is her tomb" - Act 2

  • uses rhyming couplets and rhymes 'tomb' with 'womb', which juxtaposes life and death
  • iambic pentameter makes the line seems almost like a proverb which makes it memorable
  • these techniques make Friar Lawrence appear to have some sort of higher knowledge of the workings of life and nature
  • he has an almost omniscient understanding of the conflict of life and death and good and evil in nature
• "two opposed kings...in man as well as herbs' -

  • there is good and evil in man, as well as in plants
  • speaks of evil as if it were a natural quality and comparing men to plants, he dispels the notion that humans are any more superior than nature
  • after all, many of the men in the play have a bit of a superiority complex - patriarchal views
• • The Elizabethans were extremely religious and thus their view of Friar Lawrence would have been influenced by that fact. His religion would have made him wise, too, in the eyes of the audience.
  • Friar Lawrence's knowledge of the good an evil quality that exist in man and nature, foreshadow the good and evil to come in the rest of the play and his position as a religious man gives him a superiority over the other characters in the play
• these violent delights have violent endings' - Act 2

  • speaks with a narrator like tone, using repetition to show his apprehension but is attempting to mediate the conflict
  • oxymoron used to show the danger in intense passion
  • shows the friar's awareness of natural balance
  • links to the theme of love and death being closely connected in the play
• • friars were, and still are, often tasked with providing people with advice not solely on matters of faith
  • Romeo confides in Friar Lawrence not his own father, showing that Lawrence acts as a paternal figure for Romeo. This characterises him as wise and un-biased.
• 'let [his] old life be sacraficed...unto the rigor of the severest law' - Act 5

  • he is willing to repent for his sin - he pleads for salvation
  • ultimately the Friar had the best intentions and is willing to repent to prove this, but despite his good intentions, he could not overcome the insurmountable power of fate
  • whole play is dramatically ironic, in that, we know what will happen to the lovers from the onset and yet somehow, we still root for them, as though they might somehow escape their fate. Our hope, however, like the hope of characters like Friar Lawrence, is ultimately shown to be futile
• Friar Lawrence embodies religious hypocrisy: though he warns against haste, he hastily marries Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare critiques not only the impulsiveness of youth but also the failure of religious leaders to uphold their moral duties.