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The role of fate in shakespearean tragedy
The role of fate in shakespearean tragedy
The role of fate in shakespearean tragedy
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When people do not think about their choices clearly, they may make poor decisions with troubling consequences. In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the lovers Romeo and Juliet both take their own lives. Romeo’s rash decisions are to blame for Romeo and Juliet’s deaths because he does not consider the problems that may arise from his actions. In the story, Romeo kills Tybalt without thinking of the consequences, and gets banished from Verona. After, when he hears of Juliet’s death, he quickly decides to kill himself and does not give himself more time to consider his options. Romeo’s poor choices lead him and Juliet to their deaths. Romeo gets blinded by his emotions and does not think about the consequences to his actions. At the beginning As Romeo is in Mantua, his man Balthasar informs him of Juliet’s death. When Romeo tells Balthasar to hire horses so he may see Juliet, Balthasar says, “I do beseech you, sir, have patience./ Your looks are wild and pale and do import/ Some misadventure”(5.1.28-30). Balthasar is showing concern for Romeo and asks him to wait before he does something he might regret. Balthasar seems to be aware of how impulsively Romeo acts and knows that many of his actions lead to problems. However, Romeo tells Balthasar to leave and do as he said. Romeo then says to himself, “Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee tonight”(5.1.37). Immediately after Romeo hears of Juliet’s death, he makes the major decision of killing himself in a very short amount of time. Once he makes his choice, he does not spend enough time considering what he should do, and so he is not thinking clearly about what exactly he is doing and how it affects not only him, but the people around him. After Romeo kills himself, Juliet awakens to find him dead, which leads her to kill herself. By choosing to die, Romeo not only kills himself, but also Juliet because he did not use his time to think about his
...se he believes Juliet to dead, drinks poison to take his own life as a last resort. What Romeo is unaware of is that Juliet is very much alive, so it is very ironic when he says, “Death, that has sucked the honey of thy breath,/ Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty:/ Thou art not conquered; beauty’s ensign yet/ Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,/ And death’s pale flag is not advanced there” (V iii 101-105). This is fate in the works in the play. When Juliet sees that her love has not rescued her and rather is dead, she kills herself with a dagger found in the proximity. “O happy dagger/ This is thy sheath; there rust and let me die” (V iii 182-183).
William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet demonstrate the ignorance and susceptibility of men to making impulsive decisions without considering the consequences.
The lack of communication between the young couple killed them. Romeo’s reaction to seeing juliet dead (not actually dead) was to kill himself. “Oh my love! My wife, death that hath sucked” (3.5.141-142) If Romeo and Juliet planned out the rescue of Juliet's body more thoroughly, Romeo would not have killed himself.
We have now read both Pyramus and Thisbe, and Romeo and Juliet. The question we have yet to answer is what has a greater impact on what happened, destiny, or personal choice? We believe that personal choice affected the characters more because they chose to fall in love, Romeo and Juliet rushed into marriage, Pyramus and Thisbe left home on their own terms, and in both stories, the main characters decided to commit suicide. This is something that cannot be determined by the stars, your choices determine what happens, not some mystical prophecy. Though that is what we believe, it is also believed that destiny has a greater impact because they were doomed from the stars.
The suicides of Romeo and Juliet reflect their hasty and impulsive decisions as well as the dishonesty of Friar Lawrence and the Nurse. Romeo’s haste in drinking the venomous poison, Friar’s cowardice in handling the consequences as well as the Nurse’s choice of standing against the relationship of Romeo and Juliet contribute equally to their fatal end. Therefore, dishonesty and haste can result in undesirable circumstances to any individual.
When Romeo announces he’s going back to see juliet, Balthasar begs him not to go. He beseeches him to “have patience” because “[his] looks are pale and wild and do import/some misadventure” (5.1.27-29). Romeo looks “pale and wild”, because of his anguish. Balthasar understands this isn’t a good sign, and he begs him to wait before he acts. He doesn’t want Romeo to go on a “misadventure” and hurt himself. Balthasar’s observations show that he is aware of Romeo’s nature. If Romeo waits, he can think everything through and make the safest decision. However, Romeo is devastated, and will act on the first instinct that enters his mind. The Prince decides to banish Romeo for killing Tybalt. He announces that Romeo should “hence in haste,/Else, when he is found, that hour is his last” (3.1.204-205). If Romeo is seen in Verona, “that hour is his last”. This establishes that a potential consequence of Romeo returning is death. Romeo disregards the potential of execution when he decides to see Juliet. Since he is so despondent, he doesn’t care about the threat of death. It doesn’t mean anything to him since he already wants to die. Romeo’s disregard for death and bodily harm eventually comes back around to hurt him, leading to his
In the play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, all the choices made by the star crossed lovers have consequences. The two lovers blame fate for their misfortune. They refuse to believe that fate does not determine the end result, only that they can do that. At the beginning of the play, Romeo is presented with a plethora of choices. The audience is introduced to Romeo as he sulks over his lover Rosaline.
After Romeo retrieved the poison, he was later reunited with Balthasar at the tomb of Juliet. Here, Romeo demands Balthasar does not follow him by emphasizing “And do not interrupt me in my course./Why I descend into this bed of death/ is partly to behold my lady’s face, /But chiefly to take thence from her dead finger a precious ring…” (5.3.27-31) Balthasar responds by simpling obeying his master and tells him what he wants to hear, “I will be gone, sir, and not trouble you.” (5.3.40) At this time, Balthasar fully understands that Romeo plans to commit suicide. Romeo tells him to deliver a letter of apology and explanation to his father and wishes the good fellow farewell. By leaving Romeo be while being in the know of his future actions, Balthasar proves himself as a trustworthy friend but displays that he could have prevented the death of Romeo and Juliet. Thus, further events in the play could have potentially been the man’s
In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, two star-crossed lovers betrayed their own family in order to be with each other. Given that both Romeo and Juliet are both young, they made endless sacrifices and decisions just for them to be together without considering the consequences. All of their sacrifices resulted in vain as their tragic conclusion was their own death. Although fate played a significant role in the star-crossed lovers' downfall, Romeo and Juliet paid the consequences of their dreadful decisions due to their reckless rebellion which eventually led to their catastrophic ending. In the first few events that happened in the play, the readers have already seen some poor choices Romeo and Juliet made that eventually led to their death.
Romeo’s problems arose when he got banished for avenging Mercuito by murdering Tybalt. His decision to murder Tybalt was not entirely thought through. In fact, after Romeo kills the Capulet, he exclaims that he is ‘fortune’s fool’ (73) line 132. Additionally, his banishment certainly contributed to his death because it kept him away from Verona and Juliet. If he hadn’t gotten banished, he would have been aware of the plan the Friar and Juliet had created. Unfortunately, Romeo wasn’t informed of the plan, and after he heard about Juliet’s death, he sincerely believed she died. Balthasar, who told Romeo of Juliet’s ‘death’, didn’t want to leave Romeo unaccompanied because he believed that he looked ‘…pale and wild and do import Some misadventure…’(116) lines 28-29. Balthasar’s suspicions were valid because Romeo decided to take his life. He did not stop to ask how she died, or what Friar Laurence has to say about her death. Romeo decided, in the spur of the moment, that his only solution to deal with Juliet’s death was to kill himself. Romeo’s impulsiveness caused his preventable death, but he is not the only one who was impulsive and hasty in the
Belief is a fickle thing. You really don’t get any physical benefit or lack thereof simply for belief. Psychologically, however, belief can be a very powerful thing. It can also be so in ways that we are simply incapable of understanding with our limited knowledge. But in any case, I would have to say that simply believing in fate is not enough to avoid physical consequences, but can occasionally lift some psychological burden off one’s metaphysical shoulders. This theme comes time and time again in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The characters in the play often believe strongly in fate, using it to avoid psychological burden, but more often than not, their belief is in vain.
Every decision you make leads to a consequence. The following consequences can be positive or negative, but imagine making three decisions in a few days that ultimately lead to your decision to commit suicide because of your love for a person that you have just met a few days ago. In Shakespeare’s famous story of Romeo and Juliet, he tells the tale of a young woman and man who, despite a family feud, fall in love. (1.5) They keep their relationship secret for fear of what their parents will do, and later on, make an extreme decision when Juliet chooses to fake her death. (4.1) This eventually leads to a miscommunication, and both characters end up committing suicide because of that simple mistake. The tragedy of Romeo and Juliet was caused
...ing the mistake he had made. Mercutio’s death was the cause of Romeo killing Tybalt and it was Tybalt’s fault for killing Mercutio. Thererfore Tybalt provokes Romeo to reveal his anagorisis. Furthermore, the moment Romeo realizes his tragic act is when he kills Tybalt. After Romeo slays Tybalt he claims he is “fortunes fool” (III.I. 99). In regards to this Romeo claims he has awful luck and fate is against him because it was fate that lead Romeo to this misfortunate situation. Through this quote it is seen that Romeo feels remorseful which then verifies that he understands he did a regretful act. Therefore, this proves Romeo is a tragic hero because he had realized his fatal act (anagorisis). Due to the fact that Tybalt reminds the audience about Romeo’s mistakes and foolish actions, Tybalt inevitably acts as a foil character that accentuates Romeo’s anagorisis.
The choices Romeo and Juliet make are poor, and eventually resulted in their death. Getting married, killing Tybalt, and thinking with hastyness were all poor choices that lead to both of their deaths. Once in a while making bad choices doesn’t affect someone as much, but making then many times regularly does affect one’s life. This teaches people that we must think our actions through before committing them.
Imagine the person you love is your most hated enemy’s daughter/son how would you react, would you let the feud get between you two or ignore it and still love each other. People are trying blame Friar Lawrence for his death but they don’t know that he gave Juliet a warning that the risks she would be taking are dangerous but she threatened to kill herself so he had no choice but to come up with a plan that involves a potion. Romeo was also dealing with problems before that happened because Tybalt murdered Mercutio and despite Juliet he let hatred get in the way and he killed Tybalt which resulted in Romeo getting banished from Verona which left Romeo and Juliet in shock, they tried to some up with a plan to help them