Girard’s thesis is that the most effective way by which the two groups can end the cycle is by killing a third party, one who is neither a Montague nor a Capulet, who stands outside the feud, and whose death will not lead to another cycle of retaliation. The victim must be, in other words, an outsider, someone either not protected by a group, or the member of a group not in a position to inflict its own retaliatory violence.
