Friar's Tragic Flaw Of Romeo And Juliet

Friar’s tragic flaw is directly responsible for Romeo’s and Juliet’s decision, and impacts the play’s tragedy. One of Friar’s flaw is a fixed perception that the only way to bring peace between the two families is to secretly marry Romeo and Juliet without parental approval. When the situation did not progress as planned, Friar’s superiority and stubbornness cause him to fail to realize that he should advise them to change their approach towards the situation. Not only did Friar not realizes his mistake, he still is convinced that Romeo and Juliet should escape and live their own lives. Friar failed to see the possibility that both families’ could reconcile and give the couple their blessings. Instead ironically, being a priest, Friar’s continued
Friar’s obsession in his original plan is to be blamed for the tragedy. As psychologist Flaxington stated that when a person has a fixed perception, it leads to an impulsiveness to take actions and “simply don’t have the time to think something through or do an analysis and check for understanding” (Don’t Assume I Know What You Mean, Psychology Today). Intentionally or not, Friar also breaks the Great Chain of Being by urging Juliet, who is a woman, to make decision. In their culture, all decisions were to be made by an authoritative male figure, so the fact that Juliet was making decision proved her insubordinate to her society’s culture and caused chaos. In fact, from the moment Romeo and Juliet seek help from Friar’s guidance, it was obvious that Friar was actually the one who was in total control of all decision makings. His skillful coaxing is as if he has hidden agenda to fulfil his own desired outcome. Is the focus to fix the hatred and fate between the Montagues and Capulets his priority and his ultimate hidden desire? Perhaps Friar is not pursuing Romeo and Juliet’s love for each other, instead, they are like a living sacrifice for fixing the conflict between the rivaling families. If this is true, the death of these two young lovers fulfill the mission to resolve the conflict thus, making a lasting impact. It is although Friar’s prophecy in his quote came true that “a thing like death to chide away his shame”(IV. i. 82) . This could be because of a theme, love conquers all, and that the only thing to conquer the feud is to have love conquer. Nothing can be so impactful than death because of love. We should realize that Friar’s tragic flaw is the key contribution to the outcome of the play’s tragedy because every guidance he provided was being taken in by the