Post #6: Act V- Tragedy and a Continuation

At the end of Romeo and Juliet, the future of most characters is unclear. Below, there are continuations of Nurse, Friar Lawrence, and Lord Capulet's stories.

Nurse's Story:

This picture is of Juliet's nurse,
who acted like a mother figure
towards her.

I miss Juliet so much. She never deserved to die; she was so young, so cheerful and yet, because of the feud, she still died. I was devastated, but now, everybody has moved on, even Lord and Lady Capulet. I need to as well and I think young Victoria will help me manage that. Yes, she brings back painful memories of Juliet, but she brings hope to me. Juliet's spirit will never fully be gone; it will always be present in others. Just the other day, Victoria fell on her face. She started bawling and just like Juliet, when somebody asked her a question, "...the pretty wretch left crying and said 'Ay'" (Shakespeare 54). Oh, how I miss Juliet! She will always be precious to me and I shall never forget her.

I must now depart. Victoria is waiting for me and I need to attend to her. I can finally now say without sobbing, "Goodbye, dear Juliet, and may you be happy forever with your Romeo in a better place."

Friar Lawrence's Story:

Death. I could have prevented it all if I were only more careful. Why? Why did I ever ask Juliet to carry out this dangerous plan? Why didn't I just simply arrange for her to go to Mantua and meet with Romeo there? Why did I have to risk everything? Well, I did, and now, Romeo, Juliet, Paris, and Lady Montague are all dead. The guilt consumes me every night and I can never sleep knowing that I could have prevented all of this sorrow if I had only been more

Friar Lawrence married
Romeo and Juliet and helped
them through their difficult
marriage, which ultimately didn't work out
work out

I promised Romeo that I would make arrangements for him to "...pass to Mantua,/ Where thou shalt live till we can fin a time/ To blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends,/ Beg pardon of the Prince, and call the back/ With twenty hundred thousand more joy/ Than thou went'st forth in lamentation" (194). My promise, that I was to fulfill, and was never able to. He came back, in two million times more sorrow than when he left. The poor children; they never deserved this poor fate. If anybody did, it was me. I am the one who was in the wrong. I basically told Juliet to kill herself, and by doing that, it killed Romeo too.

I cannot live with this guilt and the constant reminders of Juliet and Romeo everywhere I look. I look at the majestic Capulet mansion, and all I can think about is the day they met. If I glance towards the Capulet tomb, and all I remember is their untimely deaths. Escape of Verona is my best decision. Mantua is out of the question as well; too many painful memories there. I shall go to Brescia. There, I can have a new beginning and hopefully, eventually forgive myself.

Lord Capulet's Story:

Lord Capulet (left), Juliet's father,
was the one who arranged
for Juliet to wed Paris, and
indirectly, the one who caused
both her real and fake death.

Where do I begin? Well, first, I find out that Tybalt, my wife's nephew, has died, and it's all because of that young Montague boy, Romeo. Just wonderful. My wife's sobbing and I'm not quite sure what to do. Then, Prince Escalus decides that Romeo should be banished. Personally, I could not have been happier. Another member of the Montague family as good as gone. I get home and I hear that Juliet is distraught over her cousin's death; so, I make arrangements for Juliet to wed young Paris. Nothing can go wrong, right? Well, I couldn't have been more wrong. When Juliet refused to marry Paris, I was furious. I went out of my way to try and make her happy and she down my generous offer. Eventually, she agreed to marry him, but a few days later, we found her "dead" in the morning when Nurse went to go wake her up. Quickly, I made sure the wedding arrangements were changed to funeral arrangements and we laid my only daughter, only heir to rest.

My wife and I grieved for a day, then got over the shock and death of our daughter. Soon after, we heard that Juliet had died, once again. This confused us immensely until Friar Lawrence explained. He had helped marry Romeo and Juliet in secret, and when I announced that Juliet was to marry Paris, he gave her a poison to put her in a death-like state for 42 hours, leading everybody to believe that she was dead. However, she was actually just asleep, but when she woke up and Romeo was dead, she killed herself.

At that point, I no longer had a heir, and the Capulet family was going to die out since Juliet, as much as she irritated me, was the one who "...we scarce thought us blest / That God had lent us but this only child" (Shakespeare 214). Unless my wife had another child, the Capulet line would not continue. In the end, we decided to adopt a young set of twins, one girl and on boy. The girl we named Julietta and the boy we named Romano, as namesakes for Romeo and Juliet, whom we will never forget. Now, Julietta, Romano, my wife, and myself live happily in our mansion and attempt to live a normal life.

Vocabulary:

apprehend: arrest; take into custody
canopy: covering; protection
contempt: scorn; disdain
disperse: scatter; distribute
inexorable: unmovable; relentless
interred: buried; shut in
penury: poverty; destitution
remnants: remains; leftovers
righteous: virtuous; moral