The second letter to go missing was a letter from Tybalt, which was sent to Romeo, challenging Romeo to a duel. Romeo never receives this letter, and this ultimately leads to Mercutio’s death.
The final letter to be misplaced is the letter from Friar Lawrence to Romeo, explaining the situation surrounding Juliet, Paris, and Juliet’s fake ‘death’. This was probably the most significant of all the three letters lost. The letter went astray as Friar Lawrence gave the letter to a fellow friar, Friar John, and Friar John was quarantined after visiting the sick, and the letter never arrived. Because of this, Romeo never heard about Juliet’s fake death, and so when he finds her, he thinks she really is dead, and so commits suicide. When Juliet awakes and sees Romeo lying dead beside her, she then kills herself too.
But, although the play could be seen as a tragedy of fate, this was not the only type of tragedy Shakespeare included in his works. The play could also be called a ‘social tragedy’. Romeo and Juliet are both victims of society. In Verona the two main families (the Capulets’ and the Montagues’) are constantly feuding with each other. This had a large affect on the society, and many other people became involved, even those who weren’t family members. Because of the strong feelings and stubbornness that surrounds the primordial bitterness, neither of the two families do anything to try and form a truce with the other. This ancient feud makes it unthinkable for either the Montagues’ or the Capulets’ to allow marriage to the other family, to make them joined in a holy ceremony. If the families were not such enemies, then Romeo and Juliet’s love and marriage could have possibly succeeded.
When Romeo and Juliet first met, they didn’t know each other’s true identities. But, when Juliet finally learns of Romeo’s identity, she ominously hints at the tragedy that is to come:
“My only love sprung from my only hate!
To early seen unknown, and known too late!
Prodigious birth of love it is to me,
That I must love a loathed enemy.”
Romeo and Juliet could also be seen as a ‘tragedy of patriarchy’. When Shakespeare wrote the play, society would have seen disobeying your mother, or worse yet, your father, as awful and cantankerous behaviour. Offspring were expected to respect and obey their parents. So when Juliet went against her parent’s wishes, it was quite controversial. Lord and Lady Capulet were very strict and harsh parents, and wanted the very best for Juliet, possibly to receive what was best for them. They tried to set Juliet up with an arranged marriage to Paris, a nobleman, endowed with all the qualities that would make him (in their eyes) and ideal husband for Juliet, without her consent. When Juliet stood up to them and disobeyed her parents, the Elizabethan audience would have been shocked and astounded at such actions. Lord Capulet believes that Juliet should obey his wishes and tried to dominate her. He scolds her, threatens to drag her to church on a hurdle, calls her insulting names, demands she obeys him, comes close to physically assaulting her (“my fingers itch”), and threatens to disown her and throw her out of his house unless she marries Paris. Lord Capulet makes clear that he regards Juliet as a possession, to be disposed of as he thinks fit, with the worst consequence if she disobeys:
“And you be mine, I’ll give you to my friend;
And you be not, hand, beg, starve, die in the streets.”
In Shakespeare’s time destiny, fate and the stars were believed to have an effect on, if not entirely run, everybody’s lives, so luck was unheard of. They would have been certain that the stars did not favour Romeo and Juliet at that time, or that they met each other when the stars were wrongly aligned, or another astrological destiny. Also in Elizabethan times the ‘Wheel of Fortune’ was believed in very strongly. This places people at the top but just as quickly as they got there, they move down the wheel, but then when they hit rock bottom they move back on up again. The audience would have believed Romeo and Juliet started off at the very top of the Wheel but throughout the play, and certainly after their wedding, slipped down until they hit the very bottom, making them unable to bring about the changes they needed to make their marriage work out.
In no more than a day Romeo and Juliet meet, fall passionately in love, and get married. Friar Lawrence predicts that the speed of the lovers’ romance will lead to disaster:
“Wisely and slowly, they stumble that run fast”.
In a similar way, when Juliet is waiting for the Nurse’s return in Act 2, Scene 5, her soliloquy adds to the sense of the play’s gathering speed. It is full of the images of the swiftness of young love (“ten times faster”, “nimble-pinioned doves”, “glides”, etc) build up an increasing sense of urgency and anticipation. In the following scene, Friar Lawrence anticipates the hazards that come from joyous love and too hasty action:
“These violent delights have violent ends.”
Ominously, when Juliet is waiting for Romeo on their wedding night she wishes that Phaeton were driving the chariot of the sun so that night would come quickly. But in Greek mythology, Phaeton (son of Phoebus the sun god) drove so recklessly that he was killed.
Fate, destiny and circumstance in the end all work together to bring about Romeo and Juliet’s downfall. Yet ultimately, they both defeat fate by taking it into their own hands and ending their lives. In the end, it could be seen that Romeo and Juliet’s love seems to defeat even the power of death. The beauty and wondrousness of their love conquers all the obstacles that life and fate so cruelly place in their path. Shakespeare allows us to sympathise with them by telling us beforehand that the lovers are fated and that death will be the end when the Prologue tells us that Romeo and Juliet will “…take their life”. What makes the play more interesting and appealing is watching how event after event repeatedly frustrate the smooth course of true love. As in any tragedy the end is determined before the events begin, but part of the ‘pleasure’ for the audience is watching how this will come about.
The fact that Romeo and Juliet both knew they were going to die makes the audience sympathise with them, and not blame their actions for their misfortunes and, eventually, their death. In Shakespeare's times, this would have created a very strong sense of sympathy However, in today’s society, an audience would consider the human elements, and the elements of choice much more. Throughout the play, it is very apparent that Romeo is much more aware of fate than Juliet. She makes lots of decisions on her own, for example she plans the marriage, she chooses to go along with Friar Lawrence’s plan with the potion, she opts for death rather than life when confronted by her dead husband. Romeo also makes decisions. He chooses to fight Tybalt, although it could be argued that he is so angry that there is very little choice involved. Also among other characters there are choices made. The Nurse chooses to assist Juliet. The Capulet’s make a choice of husband for Juliet with no alternatives. Friar Lawrence willingly marries the couple and assists them, but then betrays Juliet at the end when she most needs his help. The Nurse also chooses to encourage Juliet to forget her husband, and marry Paris instead. And even the citizens of Verona choose sides, opting to be part of the ancient feud kept going only by their anger for one another.
Finally it is fate, destiny and chance that bring the lovers together, and even in death they are side by side. It is plain to see that Romeo and Juliet are indeed, “star-crossed lovers”, for fate brings them together, but fate also tears them apart again, and is responsible for their tragic end. But the closing moments of the play don’t suggest that the death of the young lovers ends the feud. The Prince’s reproach to Capulet and Montague, “See what a scourge is laid upon your hate”, suggests that the tragedy has a social cause: the feud that has racked the city. It is a travesty that it took the huge, awful consequence that was the death of their only children to make them see how terrible and out of hand their childlike actions were.
