Summary
On Tuesday morning, Paris tells Friar Laurence of his proposed marriage to Juliet — a wedding scheduled to take place in two days. The Friar expresses concern that the wedding has been arranged too quickly, and he offers various reasons to delay the ceremony. Paris believes that Capulet hastened the nuptials out of concern for Juliet's grief over Tybalt's death.
Juliet arrives at the Friar's cell and manages to cleverly sidestep Paris' compliments and references to their upcoming marriage. Paris then leaves, and Juliet begs the Friar for a solution to her tragic dilemma because she fears that death is her only option. The Friar offers Juliet a remedy — a sleeping potion that she is to take on Wednesday night, the evening before the wedding. The potion will render Juliet unconscious, and she will appear to be dead for 42 hours, during which time her body will rest in the family tomb. In the meantime, the Friar will let Romeo know of this plan. Juliet immediately agrees and leaves with the potion.
Analysis
This scene acts as a watershed — a defining moment — in the play's overall structure. In this scene, Juliet's decision to accept the Friar's potion demonstrates her commitment to defying her father's rule, asserting her independence, and accepting her resolution to die in order to be with Romeo.
Juliet's composure in this scene is exceptional. She is surprised to find Paris at the Friar's cell — a development that contributes significantly to the dramatic tension in the scene. The tension in the cell is electric as Juliet and Paris engage in a rigid and formal exchange known as stichomythia — an exchange between characters in which their dialogue switches back and forth across alternating lines. Paris shows himself to be a proper and courteous suitor, while Juliet proves her nimble mind as she evades Paris's questions and compliments.
Paris, like Capulet, believes that marriage will cure Juliet's grief, which if left unsupervised, may result in extreme melancholy. Ironically, Juliet recently has made a series of mature, reasoned decisions, such as defying her family, marrying, and now, sacrificing her life for her forbidden love — all of which are contrary to Paris and Capulet's paternalistic view of her need for adult male guidance. Juliet's conversation with the Friar parallels Act III, Scene 3, because Juliet, like Romeo, now believes that only death can offer a solution to her dilemma: "Be not so long to speak. I long to die / If what thou speak'st speak not of remedy."
Juliet's describes her fears about pursuing the Friar's plan as she contemplates the horrors she is prepared to face rather than marry Paris. The gothic images foreshadow the play's final scene in the Capulet tomb. She prepares to take the potion and exclaims, "And bid me go into a new-made grave / And hide me with a dead man in his shroud." Although these images suggest the wild fears of a spirited young teenager, they also highlight her bravery and the depth of her love for her husband.
The Friar's willingness to help Juliet reflects his concern for his own role in the unfolding events. He has performed an illicit marriage and must now strive to prevent being implicated in the bigamous marriage between Juliet and Paris. The Friar has exposed himself to substantial personal liability, but he faces many opportunities to absolve himself of any involvement. The Friar is a peace-loving yet powerless character whose efforts to promote good are as subject to the whims of fate as anyone else's in the play.
The plan Friar Laurence concocts to place Juliet in a deathlike state so that she may emerge from the tomb to be reunited with her husband appears both farfetched and morbidly weird. In the context of the play, however, the plan manifests themes previously and repeatedly intertwined — love, marriage, life, and death. By placing Juliet into a suspended state, the Friar is reversing the traditional birth/death paradigm — he is creating death in order to draw out life. This theme echoes his words from Act II, Scene 3, "The earth that's nature's mother is her tomb. / What is her burying grave, that is her womb" (lines 9–10).
Through the Friar's plan, the cycle of life and death is reversed; Juliet must appear to die in order to share her life with her husband. Romeo and Juliet's love has transcended the hollow concerns of the other mortal players. Now in order to be united, Romeo and Juliet must rise above the troublesome, temporal world in which mortal players squander their lives in fighting and feuding rather than in living and loving.
The Friar uses his knowledge of flowers and herbs to conceive Juliet's remedial concoction. In Act II, Scene 3, the Friar describes the dual qualities of the flower that is capable of healing yet has the power to act as a poison. The drug the Friar offers Juliet is compounded of opposites and will give Juliet the appearance of death so that she can regain her life and her love. The Friar's plan serves as the mechanism of hope for Juliet, but due to the influence of fate, becomes the vehicle of the tragedy itself.
The Friar's plan to fake Juliet's death using a sleeping drug would have been accepted by Shakespeare's audience, because medical knowledge was extremely limited in the 16th century. Up to the mid-19th century, physicians often were unable to distinguish between deep comas and death, making real the possibility that someone could be buried alive. When her nurse discovers Juliet, the family accepts that she is dead simply from her appearance, without having the fact confirmed by a physician.
