The Role of Fate in William Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet

     In addition to reigning over their love lives, fate also causes the downfall of Romeo and Juliet. Near the end of the play, it appears Romeo and Juliet have a significant

Fate is a hidden, but unavoidable force that leads to certain consequences in people’s lives. The theme of fate plays a crucial role in the main characters of the play, Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet share a destiny that dooms them to tragic deaths immediately after the exchange of their zealous love. Despite their resolute attempts to challenge their destiny, the lovers still succumb to the inexorable powers of fate. In the Shakespearean play, Romeo and Juliet, the principle of fate propels the lovers together with infatuation, tears them apart through a bitter demise, yet, ensures peace in Verona for many future generations.

The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, is one of William Shakespeare’s most famous plays, published in 1597. It is a story about how, “A pair of star-cross’d lovers [Romeo and Juliet] take their lives…/The fearful passage of their death-mark’d love…” (Prologue of Romeo and Juliet, 6-9) as they are forbidden to be together due to a long lasting and ongoing feud between the Montague and Capulet families. Their deaths are the results of many characters’ actions and fate, and there is not one distinctive person that can be blam¬ed for the young lovers’ deaths. Friar Lawrence is not to blame for these deaths as fate played a major role in their demise, he warned Romeo of his impulsive and unwise decision making, and his intentions were to abolish the ongoing feud between the two families. Further examination will prove that Friar Lawrence is innocent and his intensions were far from the passing of the two lovers.

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 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

William Shakespeare wrote plays that covered the breadth of human experience, which seem to have transcended the restraints of age because they contain universal themes. His body of his work is comprised of genres of plays, which varied from tragedies to comedies.

   William Shakespeare is considered the greatest playwright of all time.  His gift for developing characters is one major aspect that accounts for this lofty acknowledgement.  Shakespeare created various characters from drunks and fools to kings and generals.  The characters are so human and so real that the audience can see aspects of their own personalities represented on stage for better or worse.  Inadvertently, Shakespeare's ability to characterize any type of person demonstrates his holistic education and knowledge of everything from military strategy and open sea sailing to music and religion.  As a result of Shakespeare's true-to-life

Everyone wants to marry the love of their life. Seeking the approval of our family and friends, we all look ahead fondly at the idea of living a long and happy life with our soulmate. Unfortunately, in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet this is not the way life played out.

Fate has always been of interest to society, and even today, people continue to question whether someone’s life is destined for a certain fate, or if it is shaped by their own free-will. Such thoughts come into play throughout various acts and scenes of Shakespeare 's Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare’s play often strongly suggests that Romeo and Juliet’s relationship is built upon fate and free-will. There are many critics who argue fate is what makes up this play in its entirety due to the various fate related ideas evoked throughout it. Although fate does indeed play some roles in the shaping of Romeo and Juliet’s relationship, overall, it is free-will that plays a much greater role throughout their tragedy and is ultimately at work in this play.

A timeless topic--fate and free will--still captivates society today. Fortune cookies, physics, and horoscopes all contribute to the obsession people have with this controversial debate over who manipulates life; fate or free will. No one is sure who really pulls the strings, but everyone has an opinion on the matter. Many famous plays center on this topic, and one such play that features characters’ views on fate and free will is Romeo and Juliet. This legendary play, written by William Shakespeare, has been beloved by people for centuries, as they contemplate who is the guiding force in life? The play discusses just this, while depicting the lives of Romeo and Juliet: two desperate teenagers each trapped in their own worlds, seeking love

Most of Shakespeare's plays are conceived around a foundation in either tragedy or comedy, this polarity of themes allowing him to experiment with the full range of human emotions. Typically, an integral part of a Shakespearean tragedy is love, which is frustrated by a breakdown in order, or the character of the hero, due to some human limitation. The play Romeo and Juliet has all these typical characteristics. However, the resultant conclusion of events for the characters in this tragedy is adversely affected by the hands of fate, and not solely the product of human limitations. Fate in fact has a decisive role in the events of the play; it is a series of rapid coincidental events, which lead to the final tragedy.

Could it have been fate? Or could it have been the fault of Romeo and Juliet themselves? In the romantic play The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, two star-crossed lover fall in love. However it is not that simple. They go through many challenging obstacles and face many choices eventually leading to both of their ultimate deaths. Now, back to the question, was it fate, or was it their own fault? The fate seem to outweigh the human stupidity factors factors by many. But, I believe it all depends on what the reader believes. What I’m saying is that no matter what someone thinks, human error will always be the cause. What people call fate is merely a coincidence of events and timing with a label one it “Fate”. Overall there are three main examples from the play that show us how human error, coincidence, and misconception was at hand, not fate.

In the play by William Shakespeare, there are countless factors that contributed to their death. One simple thing, fate, caused two star-crossed lovers to die a mournful, sorrowful, death. Fate played a colossal role in Romeo and Juliet’s ending, it led to numerous factors that hinted that their ending would not end well. In Romeo and Juliet, a tragedy that ended up resolving their feuding families, fate caused them to fall in love at first sight, it caused Friar Lawrence’s plan to go wrong, and lastly, it was fate that their two families were enemies. The first explicit case of fate is that Romeo and Juliet’s families were rivals.

Shakespeare's play, Romeo and Juliet, has fate as

A French proverb says, “You often meet your fate on the road you take to avoid it.” This quote was in fact a common belief among society in the Elizabethan era and this common belief was greatly explored in various stories. In the Shakespearean/Elizabethan Society, people strongly believed in fate, fortune, destiny, and superstition. In the Shakespearean society, many believed their lives were already planned out and they had no say in what would happen to them or if they could influence something to happen differently in their life, what this society believed controlled their life was fate. This belief was explored greatly in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet where Shakespeare applies emphasis on fate's control over their destinies using words