To what extent are Romeo and Juliet victims of fate?
Richard Hughes 11T To what extent are Romeo and Juliet victims of fate? In this play we quickly begin to understand that Romeo and Juliet are victims of fate, we can see this because they are both born into conflicting families whom are named the Capulets and the Montague. In the prologue it says, “From forth the fatal loins of these two foes, two star crossed lovers take their life”, this refers to the fate and inevitability of the two characters, both Romeo and Juliet, and their paths crossing each other, it also means unlucky because in the end their affair ends badly. They are victims of fate because they have both been drawn into a situation of love which is forbidden by their families, both lovers are aware of this but they are still attracted to each other. The first time Romeo and Juliet met it was fate that brought them together, which was at the Capulet’s party. When Romeo was found to be at the party against the will of most of the Capulets, Capulet made a decision to let Romeo stay, any other time he wouldn't have let him stay but this is
where fate took hand. Romeo and Juliet meet, and whilst they are talking to each other, Romeo talks about Juliet and refers her to a “saint” and a “holy shrine”, which is blasphemy and could have triggered fate which then foreshadows them to the end of the play which involving suicide, which is likewise unholy. Before Romeo and Juliet meet, at the end of Act 1 Scene 4, the use of fate is applied again. Romeo foresees the future and has a forewarning of death. His tone is ominous, filled with foreboding. He uses eligible language predicting with complete certainty ...
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where fate took hand. Romeo and Juliet meet, and whilst they are talking to each other, Romeo talks about Juliet and refers her to a “saint” and a “holy shrine”, which is blasphemy and could have triggered fate which then foreshadows them to the end of the play which involving suicide, which is likewise unholy. Before Romeo and Juliet meet, at the end of Act 1 Scene 4, the use of fate is applied again. Romeo foresees the future and has a forewarning of death. His tone is ominous, filled with foreboding. He uses eligible language predicting with complete certainty that his early death will result from what he begins on this night, at Capulet’s feast. Romeo's life will be what he will pay for true love, and when his time is up, so will the end of his life.The first scene of act 3 is a big turning point in the play, because it's the start of the bad things beginning to happen between Romeo and Juliet which would eventually result in their deaths. Within this scene Tybalt approaches Romeo in an attempt on finding some way to revenge Romeo after he had made an unexpected appearance at the Capulet's party. At this point Romeo faces the consequences of his earlier actions, which results in the death of his close friend Mercutio, and his banishment from Verona for killing Tybalt. Mercutio’s last line in the play, “plague on both your houses”, triggers fate and something will consequently happen to Romeo's and Tybalt's family which we later find out is the death of Romeo and Juliet. Almost straight after Mercutio dies, Romeo feels the only way to restore his pride is to kill Tybalt, therefore as he does this, it traps him into a situation where his decline is inevitable. This marks the halfway point in the play, but also a turning point, where Romeo and Juliet’s love is replaced with violence. There are many point in the play where Romeo and Juliet are harsh victims of fate. When Friar Lawrence tries to help Romeo and Juliet by creating a plan to let the two of them be together after Romeo has been banished, fate seems to allows be one step ahead and ensures that the cleverly thought up plan malfunctions with awful and desperate consequences as both Romeo and Juliet end up taking their own lives as a result of the plan. This plan doesn't go according to plan, one of Romeo's servants over hears that Juliet is dead, when actually she's just in a deep sleep. Romeo's servant gets the message to him before Friar Lawrence's letter gets to Romeo even though the Friars was on its way before hand. This is where fate interferes and makes sure Romeo gets the letter from his servant and not from the Friar. He then races back on his horse and find Juliet to be what he thinks is dead, lying down in her deep sleep in the tomb of the Capulet's. Romeo commits suicide by poisoning himself even though he inside believe she is still alive fate replaces those thoughts with pain and suffering which causes him to kill himself. This is quite ironic seeing as the audience watching the play know that Juliet isn't dead and is about to wake up from this 'deep sleep' only just after Romeo poisoned himself and fell to the floor, dead. Friar Lawrence enters the tomb just as Juliet is waking up, and being present to observe the final consequences of his plan as he could not console her and she too ends her life, but with a dagger, and completes the tragic series of events caused by Friar Lawrence, intervened by fate. In his own defence the Friar says “a greater power than we (the power is fate) can thwart our intent”, which means that fate is too powerful and could not be changed by any man, it wasn't his plan that killed Romeo and Juliet, it was the fate that intervened. Also when Romeo reaches Juliet and believes she's dead he cries out, “Then I defy you, stars,” which completes the idea that Romeo and Juliet's love is in opposition with fate and destiny. Overall, the play is largely to do with fate and destiny, whether it was that or misfortune would make no difference although if it were misfortune you would have to be extremely unlucky to get that many bad things happen to you in the space of about a week. However it could have been guided differently if Romeo had made more choices for himself, for instance not go to the Capulet party, and to be closer to his family morals. Juliet is merely caught up in all this, although fate does intervene with her a few times, its not nearly as much as it did with Romeo, although Juliet still suffers as much from fate effecting Romeo and seems to be an innocent victim of fate. For fate is not what they choose but what chooses them.
