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Free Will In Romeo And Juliet

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The conflict between fate and free will manifests itself through the turmoil caused by the lovers in Romeo and Juliet to go against what is expected. The two families in the play have a longstanding feud, when two children from different sides fall in love by chance. These star­crossed lovers go to extreme lengths to be together, even going against what seems to be their apparent fate of never being together. This eventually results in their demise. Their apparent fate is that they will forever love each other, but never be able to be together. They arguably know this deep down, but attempt to go against this; this is the conflict between fate and free will. “I fear, too early, for my mind misgives some consequence yet hanging in the stars …show more content…

In lines such as “From ancient grudge break to new mutiny...A pair of star­cross'd lovers take their life; whose misadventured piteous overthrows do with their death bury their parents' strife” the reader is told how the fate for Romeo and Juliet is mapped out from the start (ROM. Prologue.1­14). Since it is clear that fate is present, one must ask if it is a non threatening force or an inevitable one. It seems as though it a mixture of both, fate is clearly something that is unavoidable, but seems only somewhat imposing from certain standpoints nonetheless. Throughout the play, fate presents itself in different situations, many times preventing the couple from being together. Their love is forbidden because they belong to families who despise each other, preventing Romeo and Juliet from making their love publicly known. Fate gives an inability for the couple to be together. In other ways, such as the miscommunication between Romeo and Friar Laurence after Romeo is banished from Verona, and Paris supposing to marry Juliet (after Romeo and Juliet get married) further show fate separating Romeo and Juliet (ROM. …show more content…

Although Romeo himself knows he is “fortune’s fool,” meaning he is a puppet of fate, free will is still immanent (ROM. III.i.94). Romeo chooses to go to the party, and then later abandons his friends to see Juliet the same night. In a fit of anger he chooses to kill Tybalt, aware that the Prince made that act punishable by death (ROM. I.i.72­94). Juliet chooses to side with Romeo afterwards, over her own cousin. It is hard to argue that Romeo and Juliet choose many things throughout the book, one thing being to get married. Nearly everything bad that happens to Romeo and Juliet is a direct result of their choices. Tybalt wanting revenge on Romeo was caused by Romeo going to the Capulet party.

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One of the most asked questions about the star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet, is “Who is to blame for the untimely deaths of these young lovers?”. The play Romeo and Juliet, written by William Shakespeare, is filled with very influential emotions. The tragic deaths of Romeo and Juliet were brought about by many characters such as Lord Capulet, fate and a feud between two families. One of the most substantial characters in Romeo and Juliet is fate. There are many times where Shakespeare leads us to believe that fate is involved with the hapless deaths of Juliet and Romeo.

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The only problem was that these two families had a bitter hatred towards each other. Fate caused the beginning of the tragic downfall between Romeo and Juliet. Fate is what is already destined to eventually happen to you in your life and is a power beyond anyone's control. The Capulet’s are very unsupportive about the two teenagers falling in love and wanted to disown Juliet when they found out she did not want to marry Paris.

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How can one small, harmless decision here and there lead to something so terrible in the end? Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare is about “two star-crossed lovers” that come from two families that hate each other, but no one really knows why. Romeo and Juliet then meet each other at a party that is held at the Capulet mansion, but neither of them know who the other is at first. Later, they make plans to get married in secret, which ultimately will lead to their death in the future. After the two get married, Romeo got into a fight were Tybalt, Juliet’s cousin, died.

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In the play Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet are at the mercy of the stars. This is shown through the fact that the two lovers are impacted by many circumstances beyond their control, essentially caused by the family feud between the Montague’s and the Capulet’s. However, Romeo and Juliet do choose to control their own lives by the decision’s they constitute and compose without the influence from someone else in the play, such as getting married in secret and taking their own lives. Despite this small amount of control they are still bound by fate shown by the reasons behind the secret marriage, Tybalts’ death and the suicides. Fate is one of the main thematic representations in the play Romeo and Juliet.

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Fate is just a way to be rude to someone with a reasoning behind it. The family feud is also responsible for the deaths of Romeo and Juliet. Juliet struggles with knowing the difference between loving Romeo and that he is an enemy to her family.

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This is why it is so shocking when the two become lovers. The power of pre-determined destiny gets the best of them. Shakespeare did not wait to tell the readers that Romeo and Juliet were a part of pre-determined destiny. For example, in the prologue it says "From fourth the fatal loins of these two foes, A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life (Shakespeare prologue). " This means two unlucky children are born into enemy families, they become lovers and commit suicide.

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The death of the two star-crossed lovers is often mistaken for a choice that they made on their own. Even though Romeo and Juliet took their lives on their own will, fate and the long lasting family feud is to blame for the tragic death of the two star-crossed lovers. The major falling-out of Romeo and Juliet was all caused by the long lasting family feud and also fate. Most people, that read the story or only hear of the story, are led to believe that their deaths are their fault, and no one else had a part in it since they took their own lives.

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Throughout everyone's life, decisions are made using free will. But in the end, fate is what determines the outcome of everything. In the book Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, there are decisions made by the characters using their free will, but no decisions could’ve stopped the tragedy of there love. All of the events leading up to Romeo and Juliet's death were not caused by free will, but they were caused by fate.

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While Romeo did make this decision on his own free will, he really just brought about the inevitable end by destiny. The characters may have the illusion that they are making decisions, and while choices are made by the characters, but no matter what decision they end up making, fates result will always prevail. In conclusion, Romeo and Juliet are definitely star crossed lovers, because of the strange events that simply cannot be described as coincidences, choices that seem to be chosen by a higher power, and finally even when they try to avoid surrendering to fate, they always end up achieving exactly that which fate wanted. To sum up, there is no way the story of Romeo and Juliet would have ended this way, if the powerful hand of fate had not played a massive

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Through the predominant influences of certain characters, inconsistency of decision making, and secretiveness amongst the characters, these events quickly lead to the grievous incident of the play. All the way from past hatred and persuasive friends, to emotionally driven decisions such as Romeo’s desire to be married and his vengeance, the play concluded with potions that provoked counter outcomes. Romeo and Juliet displayed the risks they were willing to take in the name of love, but in the end, poor choices took responsibility for the continuous occurrences that lead to dreadful ends; however, opposed to the idea of fate, or a stronger force guiding the character’s actions. With this, the play closed with the poisonous idea of the love that Romeo and Juliet shared, including all that they would sacrifice to have a chance at a life

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