Romeo And Juliet Coursework Assignment

Fate as far as Greek mythology goes is not just fate. By most people fate means that things occur for an unknown reason, that no one has any control over. However in the world of Greek mythology fate does not just happen, the gods engineer fate, and they also interfere to make things happen that might not of otherwise happened. The three goddesses who ultimately determined human life and destiny were known as moirae to the Greeks and as Parce to the Romans. The fates gave each person at the birth a share of good and evil, although people might increase their evil by their own misdoing The gods were portrayed in art and poetry as stern old women or as somber maidens and were often thought of as weavers. Clotho, spun the thread of life; Lachesis, decided its span and assigned a destiny to each person; and Atropos carried the shears that cut the thread of life at the appointed time. The decisions of the Fates could not be altered, even by the gods, but they could be tampered with.

In our modern world fate has a different meaning, fate; n. power looked upon as determining events unalterably, adj. Decreed by fate, doomed by fate e.t.c, this definition of fate is very significant as I will later elucidate.

In 1564 one of the greatest poets that ever lived was born, William Shakespeare, he wrote countless plays in his time, each one as good as the other, but one stood out from the rest, Romeo and Juliet, this play was set in Verona, a town in Italy, the two main characters; Romeo and Juliet, both alike, a large part of both characters beliefs involved fate, they believed in the stars, and that their actions weren't always there own, however fate still managed to weave Romeo into a twisted web of its powers and plans, it did this by starting with a few simple emotions and actions. One can see that the logic of fate was very strong through out the entire play, 1 example is that in the course of the play Romeo and Juliet had dreams or visions of their deaths, I find this uncanny because they mention that they have dreams of their deaths, this seems almost as if they want to die because all the pressure being put on them by both families, one of the strongest imaginings that Juliet receives, is when she visualizes Romeo dead In the tomb which is where he eventually ends up in the end of the play, BESIDE HER, this is why she talks about Romeo being so low in a tomb, he's dead and she has foreseen this before it has even occurred, the thing that is suspicious is that how could of she seen the future if it wasn't already resolute for her? The answer I think is she probably couldn't have.
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I personally do not believe in fate, but I do believe that we are controlled, not by god but by some kind of computer or machine, that monitors our every move, and decides when it is game over (death) I know it sounds weird, but it makes perfect sense, just think about it.

The Elizabethans believed in Fate to a far greater extent than the Characters In Romeo and Juliet. They would have been able to relate to the idea that Romeo and Juliet were Star-crossed, far more than a modern, young audience, this is mainly because ...

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