Fate In Romeo And Juliet

In ‘Romeo and Juliet', fate plays an extremely powerful role throughout the story. Romeo and Juliet are "star-crossed lovers," as the prologue at the start of the play indicated, they had fate against them. In that time, people were very wary of what the stars said. If two people's stars were

     Fate, for better or worse, interrupts everyone’s daily life, whether he/she chooses to acknowledge it or not. Thinking about fate conjures up different feelings for different people; some people believe strongly in it, some people think of fate as ridiculous, and some do not care one way or the other. However, in many instances, such as in William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, far too many coincidences occur to be strictly coincidental. Fate creates a powerful effect throughout the entire play, starting in the prologue, continuing as Romeo and Juliet meet and fall in love, and tragically ending in the lovers’ deaths.

The theme of fate and fortune in Romeo and Juliet is shown by the line ‘A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life’. The word, ‘star-cross’d’ portray that the two lovers, Romeo and Juliet, will meet because the stars are aligned for them. This shows that fate is a concept in Shakespeare's play. Fortune was a big part of the Elizabethan world and was believed to be the main controlling force in life. From zodiac signs to the wheel of Fortune, Elizabethan’s believed in fate and the

On the contrary, fate also shreds Romeo and Juliet’s love with death and melancholy. The two have just been married, and they are at the apex of their love. Before they could even have a proper honeymoon, Tybalt comes with bad intentions. He feels that Romeo has insulted the Capulets by coming to their party. Tybalt ends up killing Mercutio, one of Romeo’s dearest friends, in a fit of rage. Romeo is thirsty for revenge and cannot sit back after his friend has just been killed so he hunts down Tybalt and murders him without thinking of the consequences. He instantly realizes the major flaw in what he has just done when he cries, “O I am fortune’s fool!” (125) Tybalt’s violent nature, which eventually causes his death, is simply a part of fate taking its course. Another instance where fate contributes to ending Romeo’s love with Juliet is when Romeo screams, “Then I deny you stars!” (213) He believes that Juliet is dead and wants to reject his fate by killing himself to be with her in death, but she is not dead. It is incredibly tragic for Juliet when she wakes up from her long sleep to

Fate was the fundamental factor that led to the suicides of Romeo and Juliet. It is present throughout the entire play, setting the scene for the tragic events to take place. Two scenarios which show that fate played an imperative role in Romeo and Juliet’s deaths are when Romeo read the ball invite which was addressed to someone else and when Friar John had to stop while delivering Friar Lawrence’s message resulting in Balthasar reaching Romeo first. The first scenario is seen in the text where a servant of the Capulet family

In the book Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare, fate plays a large role in moving the plot along. It does this by bringing people together. Fate also plays a role in a couple people’s deaths, including the main characters, Romeo and Juliet.

In the play, Romeo and Juliet written by William Shakespeare, is about two “star crossed” lovers who are destined to end in a tragic accident. Fate is the path that leads to the future and cannot be altered no matter the outcome. Set in Shakespearean time, fate was believed to be in control of people’s lives. The fact that Romeo and Juliet would never live a peaceful life, none of the tragedies would have not taken place if they had not met. In the prologue of the play, Shakespeare outlines that “two star’d crossed lovers take their life”. This foreshadowing creates the sense that fate shall claim superiority. The powerful nature of Romeo

Many events have happened to the “star-crossed lovers,” before Juliet’s alleged death, and none of the events were caused upon themselves. Waters also articulates the thought of fate controlling the lives of Romeo and Juliet, and how Romeo knows his fate has been ill-determined by the stars. At the start of Shakespeare’s play he reveals the plot to the play, “From forth the fatal loins of these two foes/a pair of star-crossed lovers take their life:/whose misadventur’d piteous overthrows/doth with their death bury their parents’ strife” (I.i.5-8). From the very beginning the reader already knows that the two lovers are doomed by fate to their death, which will resolve the families ongoing feud. Shakespeare uses “To the degree that the lovers are ‘star-cross’d’ and their love is ‘death-marked’” (Waters). “Star-cross’d lovers,” are two lovers who are ill-fated by the stars, and because they are lovers, their love has been cursed with

Many people blame fate for the death of Romeo and Juliet. One reason being that Romeo and Juliet’s meeting at the party was determined by fate. However, Romeo went to the party because of love, and he wanted to see if he could find some else better than Rosaline. He saw Juliet and found a new love. Therefore, love is a stronger competitor than fate for their meeting. Moreover, another argument is that the prologue calls Romeo and Juliet “star-crossed lovers”, also known as lovers who are doomed because of outside forces (such as fate). While Romeo and Juliet may have had tough circumstances regarding their relationship, their doom was their own decision. They killed themselves in the name of love, not because of chance or

In the play of ‘Romeo and Juliet’, William Shakespeare explores the idea of fate, through the characters experiences. The play was taken place during the Elizabethan Era where the social norms were completely different to those today and the idea of fate was well and truly believed by the society. Shakespeare incorporates this concept of fate in different ways, he makes references to celestial bodies, employs premonitions and orchestrates events where Romeo and Juliet have no prior knowledge off. He introduces the two young lovers as ‘star-crossed’, which means their relationship is destined to end in tragedy and this is supported by events that occur in the play. Specific events

Fate is something that Romeo and Juliet can not escape in the play no matter how hard they try.When talking about Fate in the story the stars are referenced by the characters to explain coincidences that may happen to them . Shakespeare makes the fate of the star-cross’d lovers story clear from the very beginning by stating in the prologue of Act I “The fearful passage of their death-mark’d love”. (DBQ:Project, 2013) When both characters discover the others death, even if it is at different times they both decide to blame Fate. Romeo references the stars once again because he did not want to believe that a higher power/Fate would take Juliet away from him. Juliet looks to Friar Lawrence to know Romeo is dead and he tells Juliet “A greater power than we can contradict”. (DBQ:Project, 2013) He led Juliet to believe that Fate was also to blame for her husband Romeo’s death. Fate was not one of the characters that caused as much harm as the other two, but was the most blameable character for others in the play.

Romeo and Juliet, the famous story of two star crossed lovers whose love and death couldn’t be prevented. Is fate really portrayed here? Or is someone in the play to blame?

In the very first act of Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare clearly states that the play is controlled by fate. In the prologue, it states that "a pair of star-cross 'd lovers take their life" (I. Prologue. 5-6). Shakespeare refers to them as star-crossed lovers because they are doomed due to the position of the planets when they were born. In other words, he is saying that these two lovers will die because of fate and will have no way of preventing it. Later in that act, shortly after meeting Juliet, Romeo says,

Some believe that fate controls your life and what happens in it, others think that your decisions affect the outcome of your life. In the Shakespearian play “Romeo and Juliet”, two star crossed lovers from feuding families fall in love. Due to the actions they both take to pursue their love, they both end up dead along with other people. The deaths of Romeo and Juliet were not caused by fate but their own poor decisions.

Participants in the action, some of them in parts that are minor and seem insignificant, contribute one by one the indispensable stitches which make the pattern, and contribute them not knowing; that is to say, they act when they do not know the truth of the situation in which they act, this truth being known, however, to us who are spectators." (The Brevity of Friar Laurence, 850) The idea that Fortune dictates the course of mankind dates back to ancient times. Those writers of the medieval world incorporated the goddess Fortune into Christianity and made her God's servant, responsible for adding challenges to our lives so that we would see the importance of giving up our tumultuous earthly lives to God. The most influential treatise on the theme of Fate was The Consolation of Philosophy, written by the scholar Boethius (A.D. 475-525). Written while he awaited execution, it is a dialogue between himself and his guide 'Philosophy', who explores with him the true nature of happiness and fate, and leads him to hope and enlightenment. Here is an excerpt from Book IV: