William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” is a well written play that has many reoccurring themes and writing techniques. One of these themes is fate which is often shown in the play in different ways. Fate is a pre-determined path or events that happens outside a persons control. This theme shows up on many occasions. This could be because when this play was written (late 1500s) it was a very religious time and it was believed that god decides your fate when you are born.
Shakespeare explored the idea of fate in Romeo and Juliet by telling the audience at the start of the play everything that would happen by using a prologue. This is an example of fate because all the characters and what will happen to them have already been preset. Having their future already decided for them meant they had no choice but to live their predetermined life which lead Romeo and Juliet to both eventually taking their own life after the prologue states, “two star-crossed lovers take their life”.
Another example of fate being used in Romeo and Juliet is the coincidences that were extremely unlikely or pivotal to the plot of the play. All the way through the play there were little scenarios which if ended differently would have made the play end drastically different, but Romeo and Juliet’s fate took them in that route. An example of this is at the start of the play where an illiterate servant gave Romeo a guest list to a Capulet party hoping he would read it to him, but Romeo saw Rosalyn on the guest list so he decided to go uninvited. That Party is where he met Juliet. This scenario could have ended differently in many ways. Some examples being the guest list could have been given to a literate servant, the servant could have asked someone else to read it, Rosalyn could have not been invited, Romeo could have not seen Juliet at the party or maybe Romeo could of not been attracted to Juliet. If any of these likely examples happened there would have been no problems and the story would have ended a lot differently, but none of them happened because it was fate that Romeo an Juliet would meet at the party and it had to happen. Another example of a coincidence is Friar Lawrence’s letter not making it to Romeo due to Friar John being stuck in quarantine. This lead to Friar Lawrence having to go save Juliet but he only made it extremely shortly after Romeo, Juliet and Paris had died. Even if the letter didn’t make it to Romeo but the quarantine let people leave 10 minutes earlier, John would have returned 10 minutes earlier and Lawrence would have had time to go save Juliet and stop Romeo and Paris from fighting and everyone would have survived.
A good example of Shakespeare’s use of fate in Romeo and Juliet is the spiritual path that is shown to Romeo. This is shown in a reoccurring theme of the boat metaphor, often saying that Romeo wasn’t controlling his decisions, but rather being shown his fate by god. Romeo is sceptical to go to the Capulet party in act 1 after having a strong feeling that something bad would happen causing his death but he goes anyway saying, “But he that hath the steerage of my course, direct my sail.” By saying this he is surrendering himself to god to control his path, with Romeo being the boat and God being the captain of the ship, controlling where it goes. Then at the end of the play when Romeo finds Juliet dead, and gets ready to drink his poison, he says, “Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide. Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on the dashing rocks thy seasick, weary bark.” This is Romeo telling god and the poison to crash the ship into the rocks, meaning he’d die.
Shakespeare shows fate in Romeo and Juliet by using curses. In act 3 scene 5 of the play Juliet gets in an argument with Lady Capulet because Juliet is not willing to marry Paris. This upsets Lady Capulet and she says, “I would the fool were married to her grave!”, meaning she wants Juliet to be dead and married to her grave. By doing this she puts a curse on Juliet’s fate and at the end of the play it happens and she dies. Another example is when Mercutio is about to die after a conflict between the Capulet’s and Montague’s. Before he dies he states, “A plague o’ both your houses!”. This puts a curse on both houses and it is fulfilled when Romeo and Juliet die.
In Romeo and Juliet, fate is shown by dreams predicting the future and showing his fate. The first example of this in act 1 scene 4 where Romeo is explaining that he had a dream that going to the Capulet party would be the start of something bad and it would lead to his death. Mercutio tells him that dreams are just silly imaginations and they mean nothing. Romeo listens to him and goes to the party. The second example of a dream that showed his future was in act 5 scene 1, where he says “I dreamt my lady came and found me dead.”, which happens at the end of the play. Using dreams to show the future could be a warning to Romeo, but it doesn’t work and the play ends in his death.
All these examples show how fate was a reoccurring theme in Romeo and Juliet that it had a very important role. Romeo and Juliet had a preset path which they followed to the grave. God chose the paths for the characters to live, and without the use of fate and coincidences the lives of the characters would be much different.
By Otis
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