Introduction
Romeo and Juliet are unquestionably the most famous pair of lovers in world literature. Since the play’s inception in the 16th century, they have fallen in love and died in each other’s arms innumerable times. Just as the actors performing the play are bound by Shakespeare’s script, the actions of the characters within it have been predetermined by the hand of fate. There are repeated references to destiny, fortune, and the futility of trying to escape or subvert them. Thus, the play Romeo and Juliet demonstrates that fate is the invisible, unavoidable force behind the entirety of the human experience.
Main body
Firstly, the inevitability of fate is coded into the main plot of Romeo and Juliet. The Capulets and Montague have been embroiled in a blood feud with no other reason given than an “ancient grudge” (Shakespeare Prologue 3). The origins of the conflict are inexplicable but accepted as an unavoidable fact by all the characters. Similarly, humans submit to the workings of fate even if it remains inscrutable to them. Romeo and Juliet fail and die in their attempt to escape the family feud; the same tragic ending awaits any person who cannot accept their fate. Therefore, the main characters’ failure to escape the age-old vendetta between their families is reflective of the human inability to subvert destiny.
Secondly, the prologue establishes that the events of the play have been predetermined not just by the author, but supernatural forces. The main characters have sprung from “the fatal loins” of the two rival families, and nothing but their death can put an end to the conflict (Shakespeare Prologue 5). They are a “star-crossed” couple, consumed by love that is “death-marked” (Shakespeare Prologue 6, 9). Thus the atmosphere of the play is imbued with the inevitability of tragedy. The following events, from Romeo’s fight with Tybalt to the lovers’ double suicide, are not just the result of bad luck and coincidence. The prologue has dictated the action from the very beginning. Fate is playing a chess game and slowly pushing all the players into the correct positions. The prologue divests humans of their free will and presents them as ignorant pawns in a larger cosmic scheme.
Thirdly, the characters themselves are preoccupied with the rule of fate over their lives. They do not remain blind to its machinations but verbally acknowledge their fears about its callousness. Juliet laments that “heaven should practice stratagems upon so soft a subject as myself” (Shakespeare 3.5.209-210). Romeo sighs that he is made a “fortune’s fool” after Tybalt is slain (Shakespeare 3.1.127). Both Romeo and Juliet recognize their lack of autonomy and long to flout the decrees of heaven. Once Romeo learns of Juliet’s death, he declares that he wishes to “defy you, stars,” and later “shake the yoke of inauspicious stars” (Shakespeare 5.1.25, 5.3.111). Romeo and Juliet believe that they are choosing to die for their love as a final assertion of personal will. However, the prologue hints that even this decision was predestined in order to finally heal the rift between the Capulets and Montagues. The constant references to the stars and fortune display that humans are cognizant of fate’s power, but that does not save them from falling prey to it.
Fourthly, the characters do not simply fear the possibility of doom but experience direct premonitions of the tragic fate that awaits them. Romeo fears that “some consequence [is] yet hanging in the stars” upon entering the Capulet ball (Shakespeare 1.5.107). Before even discovering his family name, Juliet looks at Romeo and predicts that her “grave is like to be [her] wedding bed” (Shakespeare 1.5.134). On the balcony, she exclaims that she has an “ill-divining soul” and sees Romeo “as one dead in the bottom of a tomb” (Shakespeare 3.5.54-56). Fate in Romeo and Juliet is not just a retroactive justification of the characters’ impulses or ignorance. They predict that their end will be unhappy even before learning that they come from rival families. Therefore, fate is not a rationalization for human foolishness but an active, supernatural force that puppeteers the characters and leads them to their deaths.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the central tension in Romeo and Juliet is not between the lovers and their families but between free will and fate. Shakespeare demonstrates that destiny is an omnipotent force that humans can neither comprehend nor resist. The futility of subversion is coded into the play’s central plot; Romeo and Juliet’s failure to overcome the family feud is reflective of the human inability to deny destiny. The prologue establishes humans as pawns in a cosmic chess game that they cannot escape even if they acknowledge their role. The characters predict their death even before they learn each other’s names, proving that fate is not simply an excuse but an active force. The self in modern Western culture is understood as a self-contained, self-determining, independent unit. However, a story about the calamitous consequences of attempting to defy destiny still retains a strong hold over the Western imagination.
Work Cited
Shakespeare, William. Romeo and Juliet. Edited by G. Blakemore Evans, Cambridge University Press, 2003.