Paris is a County, the Prince's kinsman, and the suitor who does everything by the rules. He asks the father, not the daughter (Act 1, Scene 2), welcomes the hurried wedding ("I would that Thursday were tomorrow", Act 3, Scene 4) and never asks what Juliet wants. They speak to each other only once, at the Friar's cell (Act 4, Scene 1); he mourns her (Act 4, Scene 5) and dies at her tomb (Act 5, Scene 3).

"Thy face is mine, and thou hast slandered it." (Act 4, Scene 1). Four blunt monosyllables claim her face before any wedding, and "slandered" makes her words an offence against his property. Her reply, "It may be so, for it is not mine own", agrees and contradicts at once: Paris hears "yours", the audience hears "Romeo's".
"Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew" (Act 5, Scene 3). He mourns in a rhymed sestet, the close of a sonnet, as Romeo once vowed his love for Rosaline. The bridal bed is a grave.

Use him as Romeo's foil, the Nurse's flawless "man of wax" (Act 1, Scene 3): approved, public love against secret, chosen love. Yet he comes by night, unseen, to mourn a girl who never loved him, and dies asking "Open the tomb; lay me with Juliet". The fight at the tomb is Shakespeare's addition to Brooke: one more young man's quarrel, and the second of the Prince's "brace of kinsmen" lost.

"Thy face is mine, and thou hast slandered it." (Act 4, Scene 1). Four blunt monosyllables claim her face before any wedding, and "slandered" makes her words an offence against his property. Her reply, "It may be so, for it is not mine own", agrees and contradicts at once: Paris hears "yours", the audience hears "Romeo's".
"Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew" (Act 5, Scene 3). He mourns in a rhymed sestet, the close of a sonnet, as Romeo once vowed his love for Rosaline. The bridal bed is a grave.