Romeo and Juliet Group

Question:

jazlyn
jazlyn
Student
High School - 9th Grade

In "Romeo and Juliet", why did Romeo drink poison when Juliet was alive?

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Posted by jazlyn on Thursday December 4, 2008 at 2:40 PM and tagged with death, poison, romeo and juiet, romeo and juliet, suicide, tomb, tragedy.

Answers:


  1. robertwilliam

    eNotes Editor

    Because he thinks Juliet is dead. Remember that Friar Laurence's plan is to give Juliet the sleeping potion, and then let her family discover her body. When she is placed in the family tomb, Friar Laurence and Romeo will be there to see her awake - and then Romeo and Juliet can spend their lives together, far away.

    This works excellently: except that Friar Laurence's letter to Romeo, explaining the plan and explaining - crucially - that Juliet is not dead, does not get delivered. Friar John is imprisoned in a house because of the plague, and cannot get the letter to Romeo. He returns it to Friar Laurence.

    Romeo hears from Balthasar - who has heard it from someone else in Verona - the news of Juliet's death. He resolves to kill himself next to her body, to lie with her in death. Consumed by grief, he buys poison and drinks it next to her body. And then - tragically - she wakes up to discover his dead body: and kills herself.

    Sources:
    http://www.enotes.com/romeo/

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    Posted by robertwilliam on Thursday December 4, 2008 at 2:46 PM


  2. julian43 Teacher
    High School - 12th Grade

    eNotes Editor

    Because he believes that Juliet is dead. 

     Remember a messenger came from Verona with the news that Juliet is dead, which sends Romeo half mad with grief.  He does not know that she is not actually dead, but only under the effects of a drug that Friar Lawrence has given her to help her to fake her death and thus to avoid having to marry Paris.

     Later she will wake up, but sadly only after Romeo has taken the poison and died.

     So Romeo goes to her tomb prepared to commit suicide, having already brought the drug he is going to use from an apothecary.

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    Posted by julian43 on Friday December 5, 2008 at 1:33 AM

  3. annettemelton
    annettemelton Student

    because he thinks that juliet is dead due to the potion that frair laurence had given to her to fake her death. Romeo did not get the letter that juliets death was a play

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    Posted by annettemelton on Wednesday January 7, 2009 at 9:51 AM