Choices define people. What they choose to do and how they choose to act around people shows who they truly are. Every choice has its consequence. And every choice has a ripple effect that can either positively or negatively affect someone. While the choice is made, consequences are not usually thought through. A bad choice can cause a person to live in regret evermore. In the play The Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare illustrates a great tale of choices. The choices that are made affect everyone and leaves no one unscathed. Choices leave a trail and can impact many people. One choice can determine the fate of many others. Lives are precious and fragile. Caution and thought must be put into action before caving into impulses. Bassanio, Portia, and Shylock are all prime examples of how choices can affect people’s surroundings significantly.
Bassanio makes many choices that sets a path ahead of him. Bassanio is low on money since he is not very good at keeping it. Nevertheless, Bassanio continues to acquire money and owing several people. Bassanio is in love and is taking a chance to go win the love of a fair lady. He asks his good friend, Antonio, for money for his travels. “I owe the most in money and in love, /and from your love I have a warranty/to unburden all my plots and purposes/How to get clear of all the debts I owe.” (1, 1, 131-134) Antonio agrees to lend the money to Bassanio out of love. Antonio wishes Bassanio to be happy and with the woman of his choice. Bassanio reaches Belmont in high hopes of winning over fair Portia. He chooses to risk the consequences of the lottery just for a small chance to be with his love. “Confess and love/ Had been the very sum of my confession. / O happy torment, when my torturer/ ...
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...here is a time where all the fighting needs to stop and someone needs to step back and become the better person. Shylock should have done this but he got too greedy and in return loses nearly everything he loves. People constantly make choices every day and although they put little thought in them, they mean a great deal. There are various choices and the ones we pick to pursue could stay with a person forever. People need to think about what they are doing and why they are doing it before coming to a decision. A sense of control is very key in this. Without control people could all be doing very hurtful things and ruining society as it is. As a whole, people need to be aware of the ramification of choices. For it is the choices people make that reveals them as they truly are, not their abilities.
Works Cited
"The Merchant of Venice" by William Shakespeare
Choices determine every outcome, A better way to put it is “What we do in life, echoes in eternity”, essentially every single decision one makes , no matter how minuscule, will always have an impact in one’s life. Fate isn’t real; Fate is a term commonly used by those that refuse to accept that they control their own future. Teenagers ever since the beginning of time were and still are expected to make poor choices due to their age. But once they learn to take responsibility for their actions they become adults. Both Romeo and Juliet make multiple decisions such as marrying, killing and suicide without stepping back and thinking about the consequences. 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 they can do that.
The choices people make lead them to where they end up, which may be interpreted as the opposite of fate. However, when some people believe something is meant to be, they are determined not to stray from where they think they should end up, even if it means throwing away their principles and values in the process. Through Shakespeare's Tragedy of Macbeth, Macbeth’s original character and values are destroyed because of the influence from the witches' prophecies, Lady Macbeth's greed, and his own hidden ambition.
Actions are caused by ones personal choices, thus actions indeed speak louder than words. In today's society, people make a variety of decisions throughout their everyday lives. These decisions often lead to different outcomes and sometimes, they may cause a person to suffer consequences from his/her choices. Some people believe that everything happens for a reason; that everything happens because of fate. Others beg to differ as they consider that their decisions drive what fate has for them in the future and so they think that they are in control of their own destiny. 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.
Romeo and Juliet made many choices out of their own free will, including an irreversible decision that ended in despair for all characters. “All are punished!”(5.3.305). In the play “Romeo and Juliet” by William Shakespeare, the actions of Romeo, the actions of Juliet, and the actions of others prove that free will is more paramount than fate in the plot of the play.
While engendering the bond in the inciting force of the play, Antonio says to Shylock – the antagonist – “Content in faith. I’ll seal to such a bond, / And say there is much kindness in the Jew” (1.3.149-150) which reveals how Antonio sees such positive terms in the deal. Although the terms may seem simples to follow, Antonio will still face the consequences of putting his life on the line for his dear friend, Bassanio. This bond portion of the play establishes relationships through the rivals and also gives background information about characters, which show the elements of dramatic significance. Subsequently, Shylock’s possessions are at stake during their trial after Antonio fails to pay him back because his argosies were abolished. Shylock’s punishment for attempting to
Loyalty to another person can cause people to act without thinking. Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare is a dramatic play about two lovers and the quest for love. Many of the decisions that were made throughout the play were bad decisions and affected Mercutio and Juliet’s outcome greatly. While Mercutio and Juliet both make decisions out of lack of impulse control, Mercutio also makes decisions that are influenced by violence, and Juliet makes decisions that are influenced by suicidal actions.
Fate is an inevitable – seldom disastrous – outcome; regardless of one’s desire to veer it in a different path, fate is adamant. In Macbeth, by William Shakespeare, there is a steadfast question of whether Macbeth is a victim of fate or that he chooses his own path. By instilling his character, Macbeth, with ambition and ruthlessness, Shakespeare demonstrate that a person – in this case Macbeth – is doomed not by fate, but by flaws in his/her character.
Choices are defined by decisions made between multiple possibilities. There are many factors that come into play during the process of making decisions which may affect the choice made. William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Macbeth demonstrates how emasculating comments and actions affect choices made by Macbeth and other men in the play. The motif of manhood in The Tragedy of Macbeth exhibits the idea of threats to a man’s masculinity can drastically affect their choices, as indicated as Lady Macbeth questions Macbeth’s manhood before killing Duncan, Macbeth’s threats to the manhood of the two murderers of Banquo, and Lady Macbeth questioning whether Macbeth is even a man while he hallucinates Banquo’s ghost.
Choices all individuals make impact their lives. In the play, Macbeth, we see the damaging physical and psychological consequences that unchecked ambition can have on an individual; showing Macbeth as a once good willed nobleman that turns in a two faced tyrant king. Treachery, paranoia and external forces play a role in Macbeths descendent into madness, displayed through verbal representation such as the disparity between cruelty and masculinity, the difference between kinship and tyranny a parallel use of antithesis to represent the interrelationship of fate and coincidence. Through such themes, Shakespeare demonstrates that despite external factors influencing Macbeth's decisions,
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.
It has been said that one’s fate lies in one’s own hands; however, when one tries to use free will to rush this fate, the consequences are dire. In the tragedy, Macbeth, Shakespeare uses the character Banquo as a foil to Macbeth to highlight the differences in their personalities and actions. Banquo embodies the belief that fate should run its course; in this way, Banquo represents nature. On the other hand, Macbeth utilizes free will to try to rush time to reach his fate faster. These characteristics are displayed as Macbeth and Banquo hear their fates from the witches and act in response to those prophecies throughout the play. The distinct characteristics of the two demonstrate the clash between fate and free will throughout Macbeth.
This sets things up for the wedding scene at the end of the play. It also sets things up for Bassiano to make his choice later in the game. So in closing I would just like to remind you again that the soliloquies in any play or novel are really important because they explore the character more deeply than normal speeches, and they also reveal the character’s truest and deepest feelings. In other words, it reveals the true colors of the person. So just remember that you can’t judge a book by it’s cover, nor a character from what they say when there with other people.
The relationship between Antonio and Bassanio exemplifies the business nature of friendship portrayed throughout The Merchant of Venice.
and she wants to marry him. Bassanio, by choosing a. to risk everything he has, shows the effects that true love can have on someone. I will be there. True love can conquer any fears or apprehensions you may have. He was willing to risk everything he had in order to show his love for Portia.
choices brought them the fate and ending that they deserved. Even though the witches did tempt them but it was still their own fault for believing and falling for the witches’ tricks. This theme from William Shakespeare's MacBeth teaches that it is the choices that you make that leads you to where you are and you are responsible for your own fate .