Romeo And Juliet Free Will Essay

Death, tragedy, and fate are just some of the themes in the play “Romeo and Juliet”, by William Shakespear, but were the tragic deaths of Romeo and Juliet really fate? No, Romeo and Juliet deaths were not caused by fate. Their deaths were caused by their own free-will, shown by Romeo’s rash decision making, Friar Lawrence's poor planning, and Juliets bad decisions. Romeo’s rash decision making is a reason for his and Juliet's deaths. This is shown after Tybalt kills Mercutio and, “Romeo kills Tybalt for revenge (3.1.88-142).” The reason that this is such a problem is that Romeo didn’t have to kill Tybalt for him to die. The reason for this happens after the two families have a quarrel near the beginning of the play and the prince declares, “If you ever disturb our streets again, your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace (1.1.116-117).” Had Romeo not killed Tybalt, he would have been executed anyway, and then Romeo would have

Friar Lawrence came up with a plan to get Romeo and Juliet together. While explaining the plan to Juliet, he says that part of it is that, “Shall Romeo by my letters know our drift, and hither shall come (5.2.19-20).” At this point, the plan sounds fine, but he didn’t bring the message to Romeo, but rather sent another Friar to deliver the message. And after running into Friar John who was supposed to deliver the message, Friar John explained that, “I could not send it… nor get a messenger to bring it thee (5.2.19-20).” Friar John’s plan was riding entirely on the hope that Friar John could deliver the message. Had Friar Lawrence taken the message himself, or had a back up plan for if the message didn’t reach Romeo, then everything would have been fine. Fate doesn’t decide whether or not a plan is bad, and a good plan doesn’t ride entirely on one thing going perfectly, especially when that thing is someone who doesn’t know the