Romeo tells Friar Laurence that the priest cannot know or understand how Romeo feels. Why?

Question

Romeo And Juliet

Answer 1

Romeo is so wrapped up in his desire, his love for Juliet that he cannot imagine ANYONE, let alone a chaste Friar feeling quite as bad as he does now.

Remember, he has pretty much cast aside Rosaline, with whom a relationship would have caused much less hassle, due to his now undying love for Juliet and is overwhelmed by the lack of simplicity that he once enjoyed.

Shakespeare uses this "You can't understand how I feel" device in a few plays, one notable quote coming from Leonato in Much Ado About Nothing, where his brother, Antonio, is trying to comfort him in the aftermath of Leonato's daughter (Hero) being accused of not being a "Maid" on the date of her wedding to Claudio and her subsequent "Death".

Leonato says to Antonio, amongst other things :-

"For, Brother, men can counsel and speak comfort to that grief which they themselves do not feel, but, tasting it, their counsel turns to passion..."

Leonato is saying, here, "Put yourself in my shoes and see how you feel, mate."

Answer 2

This really gets to the whole point of the play: youth.

Partly it's that Friar Laurence is a priest, so he's never been in passionate love. But mostly Friar Laurence is _old_, and the young cannot imagine that old people ever experienced the passions that they feel. Each generation seems to think that it discovered love and sex.

Adolescence is something you have to survive, and once you do you look back at it and wonder how you were ever so stupid. You can imagine it from Capulet and Montague's point of view: they were just that young once, too, and had forgotten about the passions of youth.

Answer 3

I'd assume that it has something to do with the fact that the Friar, being a man of God, has taken a vow of chastity, and will therefore never know (or, at least, never be fully TEMPTED) by the pleasures of physical love. The Friar, by definition, is a man who can only know of love in a theoretical sense, whereas Romeo's entire world is being shaken by the REALITY of his love for Juliet.

Answer 4

i agree with sweetangel. how could the friar understand him if he has never been in love, because if he did, he would have ended up married, not a priest. you know the old times, your first is you last, for romeo's case, second love, because he loved juliet's cousin first, i forgot the name.

Answer 5

Do you honestly think people are sitting here with the book Romeo and Juliet right in front of them?! Please... read the book and do your own homework, you can't use Yahoo Answers for the test.

Answer 6

i am guessing because hes either not him...
or hes never been in love....