Romeo And Juliet Fate And Free Will Analysis

Verona, a city in which a pair of “star-crossed lovers” and all of its citizens overall, blame the “greater power,” fate, to veil their own actions. Fate and free will, both play a major part in Romeo and Juliet. However, only one of the two is actually true. On one side, fate supposedly controls the character’s destiny. But they are completely unaware that it is actually their free will and their own actions in which they are in control of. Though the characters in the play seem to believe and to be completely convinced that something greater, such as “fate,” is controlling them, they only choose to do so since they do not want to take responsibility for the actions they have done. Throughout the play, Shakespeare argues between fate and free will acting upon the characters.
Early in the play, the chorus immediately introduces the readers to a pair of “star-crossed lovers,” who later take their lives as quoted in the Prologue. The role of fate in the play is described to the reader as a “greater power” that’s complied within the characters and that is out of their reach and already “written in the stars.” The characters in the play do not want to take responsibility for their own actions, blaming it on fate. From the very beginning of the play, until the very end, the characters are oblivious about their free will and are convinced that it is fate controlling their lives. “A greater power than we can contradict hath thwarted our intents.” (Act V, Scene III, said Friar