Download Fate

 Shakespeare
toys with the idea that fate
or destiny is a supernatural power
predetermining the path of one’s life
From the opening of the play, the audience
hears of fate – the belief that fate
determines our lives echoes through the
play. The couple struggle to break free of
what fate threatens in dreams and
premonitions. Romeo challenges fate
defiantly when he hears of Juliet’s death:
“Then I defy you, stars!”
•
Destiny or fate is a predetermined
course of events.
Read the prologue
• What events are predetermined for
Romeo and Juliet?
Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
•
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In his last speech (Act 5-iii), the Friar
attempts to reveal his innocense by stating a
chain of all the events of the play.
Are these mere coincidences or fate
intervening?
How do these quotes link to fate?
• “untimely death”
•
“Friar John was stay’d by accident”
•
“She too desperate would not go with me”
 For your essay...
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State the incidences of fate
Say what happens.
Say what characters are involved.
Say how much impact it has on the plot
Say how it reflects characters’ beliefs in the
play eg. The Friar and Romeo thought they
could defy fate-could they?
Provide quotes to support your ideas. In
order to get a great score, the more good
quotes, the better.
Romeo loving Rosaline
 Romeo meeting the illiterate servant
 Romeo attending the Capulet party
 Romeo seeing and falling in love with Juliet
 Their love is doomed due to their families’ hatred
 Tybalt is slain by Romeo forcing Juliet’s arranged
marriage
 Juliet’s “death”
 Friar John unable to deliver the letter to Romeo
 Romeo and Juliet committing suicide mere
minutes apart

I fear, too early: for my mind misgives
Some consequence yet hanging in the stars
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
With this night’s revels and expire the term
Of a despised life closed in my breast
By some vile forfeit of untimely death
 Even
though, later in the play, Romeo
attempts to challenge fate, stating, “I defy
you, stars!” (Act 5-i), he still expresses his
own belief in the existence of fate
 In Act 3-I, Mercutio n is killed by Tybalt
 Romeo attributes this to “this day’s
black fate.”
 Shortly afterward, Romeo explains “O, I
am fortune’s fool” after killing Tybalt.
 JULIET
(gesturing towards Romeo)
What's he that follows there, that would not
dance?
NURSE
I know not.
JULIET
Go ask his name: if he be married.
My grave is like to be my wedding bed.
(Act I-V)
• Juliet foreshadows her own death – her grave does
become her wedding bed.

JULIET
O think'st thou we shall ever meet again?
ROMEO
I doubt it not; and all these woes shall serve
For sweet discourses in our time to come.
JULIET
O God, I have an ill-divining soul!
Methinks I see thee, now thou art below,
As one dead in the bottom of a tomb:
Either my eyesight fails, or thou look'st pale.
ROMEO
And trust me, love, in my eye so do you:
Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu!
(Act 3-V)
• When Juliet says she has "an ill-diving soul," she means that she has a
premonition of Romeo's death. This, of course, foreshadows how she
will see Romeo for the last time: with her in her tomb (5-iii).
JULIET
O fortune, fortune! all men call thee fickle:
If thou art fickle, what dost thou with him.
That is renown'd for faith? Be fickle, fortune;
For then, I hope, thou wilt not keep him long,
But send him back.
(Act 3-V)
• Juliet feels pretty helpless when she says goodbye to her new
husband, Romeo, after the couple's one and only night together.
(Romeo has been banished from Verona for killing Tybalt and
Juliet's not sure she'll ever see him again.) Fortune (or Dame
Fortuna, goddess of fortune and fate) is often portrayed as a
"fickle" (unpredictable and unreliable) goddess because she
could raise men up to great heights or cast them down at any
moment with the spin of her wheel (a.k.a. the wheel of fortune).
ROMEO
Is it even so? then I defy you, stars!
(Act 5-i)
• When Romeo hears that Juliet is dead, he declares "I
defy you, stars!" Is he suggesting that Juliet's death
was fated to happen? If so, how is he going to "defy"
the stars, exactly?
Romeo rejects the stars that have decided to
separate Juliet and him. He will be with Juliet despite
their plans. Is this an example of “free will” or fate?
FRIAR LAWRENCE
Who bare my letter, then, to Romeo?
FRIAR JOHN
I could not send it,--here it is again,-Nor get a messenger to bring it thee,
So fearful were they of infection.
FRIAR LAWRENCE
Unhappy fortune!
(Act 5-ii)
• Friar Lawrence blames "unhappy fortune" (fate)for
preventing Romeo from receiving a letter explaining
that Juliet isn't really dead.
FRIAR LAWRENCE
I hear some noise. Lady, come from that
nest
Of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep:
A greater power than we can contradict
Hath thwarted our intents.
(Act 5-iii)
 When Juliet awakens and finds Romeo dead, the Friar
tells Juliet that a "higher power" – either God or fate –
has ruined their plans.
FRIAR LAWRENCE
Romeo! O, pale! Who else? what, Paris
too?
And steep'd in blood? Ah, what an unkind
hour
Is guilty of this lamentable chance!
(Act 5-iii)
• Friar Lawrence blames "chance," not himself, for
the deaths of Romeo and Paris.
ROMEO (to Juliet in the tomb)
I still will stay with thee;
And never from this palace of dim night
Depart again: here, here will I remain
With worms that are thy chamber-maids; O, here
Will I set up my everlasting rest,
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
From this world-wearied flesh.
(Act 5-iii)
• Romeo is convinced that he will defy the "stars" by committing suicide.
The idea is that fate is responsible for separating the lovers but Romeo
is going to one-up the stars by killing himself, which he believes will
reunite him with Juliet thereby lived up to the idea that they are “starcrossed” lovers, doomed to die to cleanse their families’ sins.