Was it fate or free will that killed Romeo and Juliet? In the prologue of this play, Shakespeare refers to Romeo and Juliet as “A pair of star-cross'd lovers.” Star crossed lovers are people whose love is destined to end in tragedy. Free will is when people are able to make their own decisions and have consequences based off their decisions instead of predetermined consequences. Fate was definitely the reason for Romeo and Juliet’s tragic deaths because of the unexplainable coincidences, uncharacterized choices, and conscious decisions that all lead to the same inescapable outcome. First of all, Romeo and Juliet’s deaths were written in the stars because of all the “coincidences” that occur throughout the play. One of the coincidences is …show more content…
For example, when Balthazar tells Romeo that Juliet is dead, he says “I defy you, stars.” (V.i) He believes that fate is trying to separate him and Juliet. He believes that by committing suicide, he will defy the “stars” because he believes he will be with Juliet, even if it’s not on this earth. The problem with this action is that by trying to “defy” fate and the stars, he is actually doing the exact opposite. Romeo doesn’t realize that Juliet is alive, and that by killing himself, he is actually being a catalyst in their unavoidable fate. 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