Juliet a mere thirteen years old, is the young daughter of Capulet, a rich man in Verona. She is practical, honest, and loyal to herself and her family. She is also very passionate about her love; however she has control of her passion. The play is about how she discovers love, then abruptly being, according to her nurse, as good as widowed. She grows up over a very short period of time before her ill-fated death. Romeo and Juliet is very much the story of a girl becoming a woman. She acts as the protagonist of the play since she is the main character the audience watches while she matures. She is an obedient child. When her mother asks her how she feels about marriage, she replies,
"I'll look to like, if looking like move; but no more deep will I endart mine eye than your consent gives strength to make it fly."
That statement lets the reader know that she is not interested in love yet, but she will do as her parents want her to do. This obedience starts to diminish through the play. The first act of fate comes when Capulet's illiterate servant asks Romeo to help him read the guest list for a party that night. When Romeo sees his love Rosaline’s name on the list, he decides to crash the party, disguised with a mask. At the ball, Romeo sees Juliet and immediately forgets all about Rosaline. The fact that the servant asked Romeo and Benvolio for help is definitely a coincidence that affects the entire story. If he had not known about the ball, he may not have met Juliet. Theoretically, if Romeo had found Rosaline and she returned his love, he may have passed Juliet by to be with Rosaline.
When Juliet learns that she has fallen in love with her enemy, she shows great regret,
"...Prodigious birth of love it is to me, that I must love a loathed enemy."
Through this scene and the balcony scene, the reader learns that Juliet is the sensible, controlled half of the couple, while Romeo is the impulsive one. She shows her practicality in the balcony scene when Romeo asks what he should swear his love by. She rationally replies,
"Do not swear at all; or if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self, which is the god of my idolatry, and I'll believe thee."
She is passionate about her love, but remembers her adult duties and gives Romeo an ultimatum to marry her if his love is true. She definitely takes charge of the relationship to be sure that she is not just another one of Romeo's crushes. The antagonism of fate is discussed again in the wedding scene, this time by Friar Lawrence. He warns the couple of their destiny when he says,
"These violent delights have violent ends."
He knows the situation is unwise, but he marries them because he thinks it will end the feud. After their wedding, when Juliet learns that Romeo has killed her cousin, Tybalt, she is more loyal to her husband than to her family,
“My dearest cousin, and my dearer lord?”
If she had taken her Nurse's advice and considered Romeo dead when he was banished, there would have been no love story. Her decision to be faithful to Romeo is the most important one. It is this decision that the falling action of the play is based on.
While Romeo is in Mantua, Capulet decides that Juliet and Paris will be married immediately. Her obedience is completely gone when she defies her father and tells him she will not marry Paris. She tells her mother this in hope that she will delay the marriage,
"Or, if you do not, make the bridal bed
In that dim monument where Tybalt lies."
During this portion of the play, we begin to see the extreme dilemma that she is in. Since Juliet is so young, we feel intense sympathy for her. We would feel sympathy for any character in this type of predicament. Shakespeare makes Juliet his protagonist so the audience will feel sorry for her and want her to be happy. To have a chance of being happy at this point in the play, the only thing Juliet can think of is going to Friar Lawrence for help. She receives a potion from Friar Lawrence; she knows it is her only hope to get out of marrying Paris. She realizes that she must trust that the Friar gave her the correct potion and has her doubts about the plan until she remembers that it is the only way to see Romeo.
When Juliet awakens to find Romeo dead at her side, she is devastated and resolves their love by killing herself. This is undoubtedly a very important decision on Juliet’s part. She could have gone on with her life as a widow, but her loyalty to Romeo made her want to be with him in death. If she had not made that decision, the Montagues and Capulets may have continued their feud and Juliet would not have been content without her love. In short, Juliet develops from a heroine of light comedy to a heroine of tragedy.
Romeo becomes a pitiful puppet in the hands of fate when he says:
I fear too early; for my mind misgives
Some consequence yet handing in the stars
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date…
By some vile forfeit of untimely death.
The line “Some consequence yet hanging in the stars” suggests that there is an event that will happen, which he cannot avoid. Romeo also backs up the idea of fate choosing his path when he says “But he hath the steerage of my course”. By this he means that there is a greater power, namely fate, that is leading him, and that he does not have any free will.
Proving that Romeo feels uneasy about going to the Capulet party but he does not follow his instincts.
Romeo does not believe he has control of his life and he looks to another power to direct him. He calls out, “…He that hath steerage over my course/Direct my sail!”
After Mercutio dies, Romeo seeks revenge and kills Tybalt. Feeling helpless because he has killed his wife’s cousin, Romeo claims that he is “Fortune’s fool.” When Balthasar informs Romeo that Juliet is dead, Romeo yells out against the power of fate: “Is it e’en so? Then I defy you, stars!/Thou know’st my lodging.” At the end of the play, Romeo tries to escape from his destiny by committing suicide to “…shake the yoke of inauspicious stars”, but ironically he fulfils the prophecy declared in the opening prologue.
When thinking of fate, we also start thinking of "what if" questions. The most prominent one at this point in the play is 'what if Friar Laurence had told someone that he had married Romeo and Juliet?' The feud could have ended right there if the Montagues and Capulets had learned of their children's marriage. They might have been angry about it, but there's not much they could have done after the wedding had already taken place. Unfortunately, fate keeps the Friar from announcing the wedding and the marriage remains a secret. What if Romeo and Mercutio hadn't been in the street when Tybalt showed up? If these three characters had had different timing and not come in contact with each other, there would not have been a fight. Tybalt and Mercutio would not have died, and Romeo would not have been banished. Another work of fate in this act is that the Prince decides to banish Romeo rather than kill him, which is the usual punishment. The list of "what if's" is very long for this portion, but it is obvious that fate controlled the actions of this segment, which led to disaster.
Another work of fate comes when Capulet orders Juliet to get married. It may seem like an insignificant detail of fate at the time, but it affects the entire story. If the wedding had not been so soon, Friar Lawrence would have had time to bring Romeo back and reunite the couple. Capulet's orders cause Juliet to take the potion which makes Romeo believe she's dead. This leads to the most significant act of fate when Romeo does not receive the letter that Friar Laurence sends. Fate, coincidence, and the stars - have all dealt the lovers yet another blow. The destinies of the lovers depended on the element of chance; fate denied it to them. Friar Lawrence gives Friar John a letter to Romeo explaining his and Juliet's plan. Unfortunately, the letter doesn't make to Mantua. Balthasar reaches Romeo and tells him that Juliet is dead. Stricken with grief, Romeo gets a potion from an Apothecary to kill himself next to his love.
Fate's final blow allows Romeo to arrive at the tomb just minutes before Juliet awakens. If he had arrived after, the lovers would have had a chance at a happy life together. Though their physical deaths were their own decisions, fate made them want to die. The predetermination of fate led one catastrophic event into another. Fate was brutal to Romeo and Juliet, but it had its motive, which was to end the feud. It is indisputable that fate is the most dominant force in the play and it is most responsible for the devastating death of the young lovers.
