In William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, underlying forces play an extremely powerful role throughout the story. These forces turn out to cause many terrible events. Shakespeare hints at the outcome throughout the story and makes the reader hope more and more that Romeo and Juliet can live together. Unfortunately, the fate of Romeo and Juliet isn’t a very preferable one.
Romeo and Juliet were ultimately the ones responsible for their own deaths. The destinies of these two “star crossed lovers” were set from the start of the story, and almost all events that took place brought Romeo and Juliet closer to their inevitable fates. There were too many coincidences to give the reader any doubt that the characters in the play would live life trouble free. The story of Romeo and Juliet is all about fate and destiny, and these are the biggest underlying forces in the story.
The moment Romeo and Juliet met; they were on a path for disaster. From the very beginning it is stated that “from forth the fatal lions of these two foes, a pair of star-crossed lovers take there life.” That translated into today’s English means, because of the traditional opposition of the two groups it just couldn’t work out. Its true meaning to the story is that love just couldn’t overcome a life long grudge; fate just wouldn’t let it happen. Every event that took place brought Romeo and Juliet closer to their inevitable fates. There were just too many coincidences; it was too good to be true right from the start.
Theme of fate in Romeo & Juliet – GCSE coursework
Despite fate’s grasp on Romeo and Juliet being clear from the beginning, their choices in the play cause fate to build momentum and accelerate their lives to their inevitable end. Shakespeare’s original presentation of fate is of an inescapable event, but how the characters get there is less certain and more chance. Whereas Luhrmann’s fate is cruller and more controlling, but both interpretations ...
Romeo and Juliet shared the unfortunate fate that they were from feuding families. The two of them were a perfect match, and were in love at first site, and the odds that one was a Montague and one was a Capulet were incredibly slim. They both were pretty surprised when they learned that the other was from the opposite family. Juliet wanted to make it work and tries to downplay the problem with their relationship in her soliloquy on the balcony, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other word would smell as sweet… .” But these words just seem so insincere to the reader.
Although what she says is very true in most situations, it is not at all true in this one. A relationship cannot overcome years of fighting, regardless of how much you love each other.
