Romeo and Juliet’s Love

In the extract, Shakespeare appears to depict the tragic ending to Romeo and Juliet’s love as the fault of fate, as if it was inevitable. This determinist attitude is shown in the prologue through Shakespeares continuous references to the stars and the family feud.

In the prologue, Shakespeare appears to blame their parents feud for the death of romeo and juliet, as although Shakespeare doesn't seem to deny that romeo and Juliet’s deaths were some what due to fate, it was their parents choices to not end their on going feud which subsequently led to the fate of Romeo and Juliet as they came ‘from forth the fatal loins of these two foes’. The alliteration and the plosive nature of the ‘f’ emphasise the ‘fatal’ and the ‘foes’ in the line which further highlights the idea that the feud between the two ‘foes’ will have a deadly outcome for their children.

Shakespeare uses imagery with implication of fate when referring to Romeo and Juliet as they are ‘ a pair of star-cross’d lovers’. In this line, Shakespeare makes it explicitly clear that Romeo and Juliet are victims of fate as their love was decided by the ‘stars’. The line is also almost completely monosyllabic apart from ‘lovers’ so, naturally emphases that word which exacerbates the idea that it is their love that is victim to fate.

Shakespeare constantly refers to death in the prologue to remind the audience that their death was due to fate. The fact that their love was ‘death-marked’ shows that it was doomed by fate from the very start. The oxymoronic nature of ‘death-marked love’ emphases the idea that their love was also very conflicting and wrong. The personification of their death ‘bury[ing] their parents’ strife’ highlights that fate for Romeo and Juliet has incapsulated itself in the form of death.

In the play as a whole, although in the prologue Shakespeare alludes to the idea that their death was completely due to fate, in the rest of the play Shakespeare presents ideas that perhaps it isn't that simple as he constantly duels with the idea of fate versuses free will and whether or not Romeo and Juliet’s love truly was death marked or whether it was choices they made which ultimately led to their death.

In Act 1 scene 2 when Romeo reads the letter and finds out about the Capulet party, whilst him meeting the illiterate slave was down to fate, Romeo chose to go to the party even though he knew he was not welcome, after all he was a Montague. Here Shakespeare begins to show the battle that is yet to come between free will and fate in Romeo and Juliet. This is continued a few scenes later when `Romeo ‘dreamed a dream’ and saw ‘some consequence yet hanging in the stars’. The use of polyptoton with the ‘dreamed’ and ‘dream’ emphasises how great his dream was as though it was a warning about his fate which is exacerbated by the star imagery of ‘hanging in the stars. The use of the word ‘hanging’ could also suggest that his fate isn't completely determined yet as though it is his choices which will dictate his fate. Despite the promotions that Romeo received about his ‘untimley death’, Romeo still chose to go to the party, which is arguably him using his free will rather than following fate.

In Elizabethan times, almost everybody were rather determinist in their thoughts as they were all firm believers in fate, superstition and the wheel fortune. They didn't think that free will existed, rather that God had already predertemined everything that would happen to them. Because Shakespeare wrote his plays with Elizabeth I is mind, it isn't a surprise that Shakespeare pushes a lot of references to fate throughout the whole play as that is what Elizabethans could relate to. Although a lot of the play is arguably pushing the idea of free will, Elizabethan audiences naturally wouldn't have picked up on these particular subtleties of the play.

In Act 3 scene 1, Romeo blames fate for the death of Tybalt, calling himself ‘fortune’s fool’, and whilst it is quite a stretch for Romeo to try and blame fate for the death of Tybalt when Romeo quite obviously chose, through his own free will to kill him, it shows not only how great of a power characters in Romeo and Juliet and Elizabethan people gave fate but also how dangerous an idea determinism can be if too much of an importance is put on it which pays dividends at the end of the play. The plosive ‘f’ in ‘fortunes fool’ highlights the pure anguish Romeo feels as he feels he hopeless compared to the great power of fate and he can’t do anything about it. This reiterates the idea about the wheel of fortune in which Elizabethans believed which was concept that fate and fortune control life and that the wheel could turn in your favour or reduce your status as misfortune struck.

Friar Lawerence is prime example of someone who constantly blames fate for his own wrong doing, most of which partially lead to Romeo’s and Juliet’s deaths. When Friar Lawerence meets Juliet in the tombs after Romeo is dead, he blames a ‘greater power than [they] can contradict’