Romeo and Juliet: Characters

The Montagues

Romeo

• Son and heir of the Montagues; the play opens with him lovesick over Rosaline, who never returns his love.
• He forgets her the instant he meets Juliet at the feast, and they marry in secret the next day.
• Impulsive throughout: when Tybalt kills Mercutio, Romeo kills Tybalt in revenge and is banished to Mantua.
• Wrongly told Juliet is dead, he returns to her tomb, kills Paris, and poisons himself beside her.

Benvolio

• Romeo's cousin and loyal friend, and the play's peace-maker - his name itself hints at "good will".
• He breaks up the opening brawl, talks Romeo out of his moping, and gets him to the Capulet feast.
• A calm character that contrasts the furious Tybalt: one tries to stop fights, the other goes looking for them.
• He gives the Prince an honest account of the deaths, then simply disappears from the play - there's no death scene.

The Capulets

Juliet

• The Capulets' only daughter, not yet fourteen - at first a sheltered, obedient child barely thinking of marriage.
• Meeting Romeo changes her quickly: she is the braver of the two, proposing marriage herself and arranging the wedding through the Nurse.
• Ordered to marry Paris, Juliet defies her family. When the Nurse tells her to forget Romeo and marry Paris, Juliet is left completely alone.
• She takes the Friar's sleeping potion to escape the match, then wakes to find Romeo dead and stabs herself.

Lord Capulet

• Juliet's father and head of the household; at first a warm, indulgent parent who tells Paris she's too young and that her own wishes matter.
• He even shields Romeo at the feast, refusing to let Tybalt start a fight in his house.
• But after Tybalt dies he promises Juliet to Paris, and rages when she refuses - threatening to throw her out to starve.
• Only his grief at her tomb finally moves him to make peace with the Montagues.

Tybalt

• Juliet's cousin and the fiercest defender of Capulet honour - he hates the word "peace" as he hates hell.
• Enraged to find Romeo at the feast, he is held back only when Lord Capulet refuses to let him fight.
• The next day he hunts Romeo down and kills Mercutio with a thrust under Romeo's arm.
• Romeo kills him in revenge moments later - the act that gets Romeo banished.

The Nurse

• Juliet's wet-nurse, and far more of a mother to her than the cold Lady Capulet - warm, talkative and bawdy.
• She happily acts as go-between for the lovers and helps arrange the secret marriage.
• But when Lord Capulet rages, she tells Juliet to forget the banished Romeo and simply marry Paris.
• To Juliet this is a betrayal she never forgives, leaving her with only the Friar to turn to.

Caught between

Mercutio

• Romeo's quick-witted, hot-blooded friend, related to Prince Escalus and loyal to neither feuding house.
• Famous for the fanciful "Queen Mab" speech, he mocks Romeo's lovesickness and lives for wit and wordplay.
• Impatient when Romeo won't fight Tybalt, he draws his own sword on Tybalt - and is killed under Romeo's arm as Romeo tries to part them.
• He dies cursing "a plague o' both your houses" - the turning point that pushes Romeo into revenge.

Friar Lawrence

• A well-meaning friar and Romeo's confessor, who marries the couple in secret hoping to end the families' feud.
• His plan is the sleeping potion: Juliet appears dead for forty-two hours while he sends word to Romeo.
• The message never arrives - its carrier is shut up in a plague quarantine - so Romeo hears only that she is dead.
• Lawrence reaches the tomb too late to save her. His good intentions end in both lovers' deaths.