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*how the students could respond theoretically...

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*how the students could respond theoretically...

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Friar Lawrence's rash, presumptuous actions concerning the two star-crossed lovers led to their untimely deaths. As a confidant of the two teenagers, Friar Lawrence held a great amount of influence over the actions taken by Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet when it came to their hidden love affair. In fact, if not for his meddling and willful interference, the lovers may have been able to work towards a more honest declaration of their love. When they did not get the support from their parents, they looked to Friar Lawrence for a solution. It was his duty to protect them both from rash decisions and to protect their innocence.
Quite frankly, Friar Lawrence is the individual who instigated the plan to have the two wed. Rather than giving sound advice to Romeo when he visits him at the abbey following the Capulet soiree, Friar Lawrence tells Romeo, "But come, young waverer, come, go with me,/In one respect Ill thy assistant be,/For this alliance may so happy prove/To turn your households rancor to pure love" (II.iii). He is already playing upon the naivety of his charge in the hope that he can be seen by all in Verona as the one responsible for ending the feud between the Montagues and Capulets. He is playing into Romeo's swiftly changing whims, and is not thinking what is best for the young man, but how his marrying the two may better all.
When Romeo is banished by Prince Escalus for the slaying of Tybalt and it appears that all hope is lost for our lovers (as Juliet's father intends for her to marry Count Paris with haste), Friar Lawrence concocts a plan of deception that will further alienate the lovers from those closest to them, and leave them solely reliant upon him. In Juliet's distraught state, she will hear nothing of the Friar's initial advice to go through with the marriage to Paris, so he plans to have Juliet, "Take thou this vial, being then in bed,/And this distilld liquor drink thou off,/When presently through all thy veins shall run/A cold and drowsy humor, for no pulse/Shall keep his native progress, but surcease [...]/And in this borrowed likeness of shrunk death/Thou shalt continue two and forty hours,/And then awake as from a pleasant sleep [...]/In the meantime, against thou shalt awake,/Shall Romeo by my letters know our drift,/And hither shall he come [...]" (IV.i). At this point, the audience should begin to question whether his motives are solely to bring Romeo and Juliet back together, or to cover up his illegal marriage of the two (as he lacked consent from either of their parents).
Finally, Friar Lawrence acts the coward upon discovering that all has not gone according to plan. When he sees Romeo's dead body lying in the Capulet tomb beside a slowly rousing Juliet, he begs the young widow, "Come, Ill dispose of thee/Among a sisterhood of holy nuns./Stay not to question, for the watch is coming./Come, go, good Juliet. I dare no longer stay" (V.iii) in order to conceal his gross negligence. He has failed Romeo and Juliet in their hopes of reuniting as well as in their final moments. He admits as much to Prince Escalus when the watch brings him forward on grounds of suspicious behavior, "I am the greatest, able to do least,/Yet most suspected, as the time and place/Doth make against me, of this direful murder./And here I stand, both to impeach and purge,/Myself condemnd and myself excused" (V.iii). It is only when he has been caught that he feels all should know what he "attempted" to do for the lovers and by extension their families and the city of Verona. It is worth noting, that he does not hesitate to assign blame to Juliet's nurse with regards to the conspiracy to marry the star-crossed lovers, just another example of how truly disappointing he is as a role model and trusted adult for these confused, over-emotional teenagers.

Friar Lawrence holds the most blame in Romeo's and Juliet's deaths as all the secrecy and duplicity would have gotten no where without his intervention and over-reach.