Student Essay on Friar Lawrence Character Analysis

Friar Lawrence Character Analysis by William Shakespeare

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Essay

"Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, and vice sometime by action dignified." (II.3.21-22.Friar Lawrence)

"For nought so vile, that on the earth doth live, but to the earth some special good doth give;" (II.3.17-18.Friar Lawrence)

"In one respect I'll thy assistant be: For this alliance may so prove to turn your household's rancour to pure love." (II.3.90-93.Friar Lawrence)

Secluded from the real world longer than the typical citizen of Verona, Friar Lawrence has gained little understanding of what really surrounds him and thus he became a little less perceptive than what some people normally expect in adults such as him. He became unworldly, naïve, and oblivious to the world around him, and yet he continues to draw morals from his observations. Through his words, Friar Lawrence may leave hints that he is good intentioned; so good intentioned that he may have become short-sighted (in this case, lacking foresight) which is the key to why he married Romeo and Juliet. As the simple kind man he is, Friar Lawrence is not afraid to take risks to make his (sometimes) outrageous plans feasible without thinking of the consequences he would have to face if his plan should fail. At the time he married Romeo and Juliet, he thought that in the end, the feuding would stop, peace would once again be assembled in Verona, and Romeo and Juliet would live a happy life together; this thought was drawn from his good-intentioned nature. As a strong philosophical and moraled character, Friar Lawrence's philosophy is based on the temperance and moderation of human nature (which he abuses himself by marrying Romeo and Juliet out of his passion for the couple). He also lives by crediting his plants and seeking good and bad qualities in them, and he does the same for humanity. But the main problem that we may have to focus on at this point of the story is that the gamble that Friar Lawrence is playing on Romeo and Juliet's lives is unfair, since Friar Lawrence is the confessor to the couple and the more fatherly figure to Romeo, the Friar should have discussed the complications that would arise from their marriage.