Hatred is commonplace and widespread in this place. Sometimes, it seems necessary to join these confrontations in order to portray loyalty. This is proven when Mercutio sticks up for Romeo against Tybalt. Mercuto dies in this fight and Romeo kills Tybalt in response, which leads to it’s own banishment.
As we have read, it is the death of the two young lovers that ends with the conflict between the two families. It is their love and fear to express it, which ends with their lives, and it is fate which makes impossible to stop their deaths. Therefore, we can agree that the death of the lovers was necessary to end up with the families’ conflict and that is why they weren’t able to live together happily ever after.
Fate is considered to be a strange force, which has a control over our lives, yet fate can’t control free will. Fate is present since the beginning of the play. The first example of a reference to fate is in the prologue, at the every start of the play:
“From forth the fatal lions of these two foes A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their lives; whole misadventured piteous overthrows Do with their death bury their parents’ strife.”
This quotation reveals that even from the very beginning, the two young lovers were doomed. ‘Star-crossed’ refers to the astrological outlook on destiny that “ was much more accepted when Shakespeare wrote his tragedy.”
Yet fate is present throughout the play, altering decisions, which would normally have taken a different way. This is the case of the prince of Verona who decides to banish Romeo instead of killing him. If this wouldn’t had happen, then the hate between the two families wouldn’t have ended, as this hate just ends after each family loses a close relative which leads them to think how there actions and hate has ended with their children’s lives.
Fate or providence is also present when Friar John decides to visit a friend and is unable to give Friar Laurence’s letter to Romeo. Providence is present too, when Romeo decides to visit Juliet in her tomb minutes before she wakes up.
The tragedy of Romeo and Juliet is fate driven. All the vents that happened in the play lead to one major event, for which the play is said to be tragic, in which for most part fate plays a large role. The two young lovers discover that their love cannot be simple and pure, and that no matter what they do it will still end tragically. The two families whose strife can only be stopped by the “predetermined love of their offspring”, seize hatred between them.
Conversely, not many people believe in fate and providence, and would find this absurd. This might be because people like to believe that they are in control of their own destiny and that any difficulties arising from their actions can actually be sorted out.
Vanessa Arellano
S4A
