What is the Significance of Fate and Destiny in Romeo and Juliet?

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What is the Significance of Fate and Destiny in Romeo and Juliet?

From forth the fatal loins of these two foes, a pair of star crossed lovers take their life.’  As we all know, ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is a tragic story of romance. Romeo and Juliet’s death was a result of many misfortunes, but they were mostly victims of the society in which they lived and their own passions. Thus, fate and destiny are undoubtedly the most responsible influence for the couple’s heartbreaking tragedy.

Fate and destiny have very similar meanings and are usually, and easily, perplexed.  Fate is your overall circumstances or condition in life.  Destiny is an event that will inevitably happen in the future. Although fate and destiny are significant, there is also the possibility that the actions of some characters were self induced.

Elizabethan England was completely different to today’s society.  What we find acceptable currently, would have been frowned upon.  The two audiences respond to the play differently.  An Elizabethan audience would not question events such as Romeo and Juliet’s death as they were a violent society and accepted it as a consequence of life.  As Romeo and Juliet’s death may not have affected them, the fact their deaths were due to suicide, would.  This would be because suicide was an act against their religion and hence, God.

Arranged and approved marriages by the patriarch would have been normal for all classes.  This was an expected and traditional part of Elizabethan life. Women had limited roles in society and became either a housewife or a mother. Elizabethan women gave birth on average every two years and were required to. If a woman was not married and did not belong to a patriarch, they would be extremely poor and probably turn to prostitution.

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The prologue of the play insights the audience into what is inevitably going to happen.  It is usually thought of as the voice of Shakespeare and what his views and opinions are of the ‘star-cross’d lovers’.  He makes the audience aware that whatever the two lovers do, they can never escape the events that are to occur.

Fate and destiny are causes of the many key events in ‘Romeo and Juliet’, but what is the result of fate and destiny? Can we tell apart the events caused by each of them, or are the meanings so similar that there ...

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