Who was responsible for the death of Romeo and Juliet?

Many people in the story are eligible for this title, Tybalt, Capulet, Montague, etc. But the one who gets the honor is Friar Lawrence. He was the priest of the story, the holy and right figure. He was Romeo’s confidant, not Romeo’s father, Montague. For such a smart man, he made very idiotic choices on his part.

            Friar’s first mistake was marrying Romeo and Juliet secretly. Doing such an important and life-changing thing in secret is never good. When Tybalt tries to fight Romeo, Romeo says no because they are family now. “And so good Capulet, which name I tender/As dearly as mine own, be satisfied.” But Tybalt, for some reason hates Romeo so much, still tries to fight. This leads to the banishment of Romeo.

            His second mess up was when he gave Juliet the concoction to imitate death. If he was going to do something that drastic, more people should have known besides him. He should have let the Nurse know or at least someone that could help. In fact, instead of giving Juliet a sleeping potion, he should have just been safer and told her to run away or something. But things didn’t happen like that.

            His final mistake was that he didn’t deliver the letter with a perfectly reliable person. He sent it with a Friar who didn’t even know that the letter was extremely significant. “The letter was not nice but full of charge…” He should have let the person bearing the letter know that delivering this was a matter of life and death. Or even better, Friar Lawrence should have just delivered the letter himself.

            So I blame Friar Lawrence for the deaths of Romeo and Juliet. He wasn’t the only one who did something wrong, far from it. But he was still a big factor of this outcome. Something good did come out of this tragedy though. The feud between the Montagues and the Capulets was finally over, all thanks to Romeo and Juliet.