Romeo and Juliet Benvolio
by William Shakespeare

Benvolio’s name sounds similar to “benevolence,” and in fact Benvolio strives to be a benevolent peacemaker – although he fails in the very first scene when Tybalt provokes him into a fight. Benvolio spends the rest of the play attempting to give Romeo good advice and largely failing, mostly because he does not realize that Romeo is no longer pining over Rosaline, and attempting to keep the peace in Verona’s streets and largely failing. Nevertheless, Benvolio is one of the few main characters who remains alive at the end of the play, suggesting that while human intentions and conscious acts cannot change all things, they can change the course of fate for an individual.