Act 5 Notes

Scene 1: Romeo is actually in very good humor. He has dreamed that he died and Juliet's kisses breathed life back into his body. But, as Mercutio says in Act I, "Dreamers often lie." Romeo's soliloquy is full of dramatic irony because the dream anticipates the play's final scene when Juliet awakes in the tomb to find Romeo dead and tries to kiss the poison from his lips.Tragedy is imminent when Balthasar arrives wearing boots — a harbinger of doom in classical theater. Balthasar gently delivers to Romeo news that Juliet's "body sleeps." Because the Friar's message did not reach Romeo in Mantua, Romeo's good mood shatters instantly. This moment of defiance marks a change in Romeo's character. Henceforth, he is angry, cynical, and emboldened to defy his fate. His anger and frustration drive him to try to take command over his own life — he decides that if he cannot be with Juliet in life, he will join her in death. His resolve to die echoes Juliet's expression that her last resort is her sanctuary — they have the power to die.To this end, Romeo visits an impoverished apothecary. The apothecary's dusty, tomb-like shop is a museum of deathly horrors filled with the bodies of dead animals, "skins," "bladders," and "old cakes of roses." The apothecary, a personification of death, brokers deathly poison to Romeo.

Scene 2: Fate ruined the Friar's plan by delaying his letter. The Friar cries, "Unhappy fortune!" echoing Romeo's earlier cry that he became "fortune's fool." The scene is driven by an overwhelming sense of desperation as the Friar returns to the Capulet tomb to liberate Juliet. I recalled to the Friar's words from Act II, that the earth is nature's mother and that her "burying grave . . . is her womb." The Friar's desperate attempt to physically extricate Juliet from the womb-like tomb casts him in the role of symbolic midwife, who must deliver Juliet from the bowels of death. Now the philosophical Friar, more at home with ideas, must take action so that his entire plan does not decay into an abortive attempt to defy fate.