Romeo and Juliet is an enlightening play which illuminates the best of metaphorical language. This often has one vivid meaning, but if you decode the metaphor you discover the concealed truth. These plays often are divine and tragic, accompined by love. But the play itself has everything to do with fate. From one aspect to another the audience is left wondering about what will God do to his characters next. The play simply relies on fate and what. At the Elizbethan times, religion was truly vital to everybody. Religion was the core of life, and everything revolved around that. That is the reason Shakespare wove fate through out his play. We could call these events in the play only as mere coinidences. At those times these were acts of God. This was really important in the play of Romeo and Juliet as fate changed the whole story of what could have happened, or perhaps a better ending. Shakespeare uses brilliant devices to express fate, and one way he does this is, that things happen to slow somebody of getting to the plot in time. In one case Friar Lawrence is stopped by grave stones to get to Romeo. The question is how does William Shakespeare explore the idea of fate in his play Romeo and Juliet?
To begin with, what is fate? Fate is like your destiny, what God has destined for you to occur next. It is a journey planned out for you by God. For egsample you could state that the fate of this young boy is to became a doctor. Or the fate of this man is to take a voyage across the seas. So in Romeo and Juliet they had there life ahead of them. They were only young. We know that they end up dying.”A pair of star cross’d lovers take their life.”So right at the beggining the audience knows what shall happen. Now the audience knows that they will die, so what ponders across there mind is why. The important part is the fact that they killed themselves. This at Shakespearean times was seen as a really awful thing to do. It would put you out of Gods realm, out of Gods reach. This was going against your fate. It was worse to kill your self and then kill another person at that era. But there deaths brought peace to there families, and stopped the everlasting hatred and vengeance. But for themselves they were believed to go to hell… These scenes had a deeper meaning to the mind, than just killing them selves. That is what makes Shakespearean plays so theartrical.
There is a point in the play when everything goes wrong for Romeo and he loses faith in God. He uses the metaphor “Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on. The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark” What Romeo is saying is that God is his pilot. He is directing his boat into, a voyage of viscous seas with rocks. Translating the metaphor, what he means is that God has chosen his path into a bad route of dashing seas and rocks, and that he has lost hope in his pilot, God. The ship is reffering to Romeo. Once he has lost fate he has lost hope. He then says “Here’s to my love!” Drinks the poison that the apothecary sold him. Then dies. Everything is going wrong with his love Juliet. They are in love so much that they lose fate over God and end up killing them selves.
Always people are being slowed down to get somewhere in time. When Friar John had to deliver the message to Romeo. He was stopped in village that was under quarantine. He did not send the message in time, meaning Romeo was unaware of the plan. The audience begins to think what if he went another route, or a few days earlier, it would have changed the whole outcome of the play. Another point in the play Friar Lawrence is slowed down by Gravestones to get to Romeo and Juliet. It is almost as if the dead did not want him to get in time, piercing the Earth with their bare bones to bring him to a halt. The conclusion of this is finding Romeo dead and Juliet in a pool of blood. The tool Shakespeare uses is the dead trying to stop him getting there in time by Gods command. That is the hidden meaning behind the line “Have my old feet stumbled at graves.” Theses obstacles situated by God are used to alter the path of Romeo and Juliet. Almost like an assault course.
The marriage of the two marrying was ideal to bring the families together, in peace and harmony. Instead it turned out to be disastrous. But when young Romeo and Juliet died the families were together. They shared each others empathy, thus were more peaceful and happy.”But I can give thee more, for I will raise her statue in pure gold.” Meaning that Montage even erects a solid gold statue of Juliet. This segment shows how the two families are brought together over both the deaths of the young couple. The speculation of this is, that God could have chosen this for the better. From the religion Christianity God does things for a better outcome. So the ending of this must have been what Shakespeare was intending to happen, or the audience to believe. Considering the Elizabethan times, this would have been the outcome. But people interpret the play differently, so there are more endings to this than the ending Shakespeare preffered.
The analysis on fate shows that there are many factors of fate that Shakespeare displayed in his intruiging play. He mostly uses fate in all his plays to sculpt them. Often he uses obstacles placed by God to change the path of somebody. When you hear of Romeo and Juliet, you always think what a lovely play. When you see it for yourself you discover the mysterious truth behind this dark and romantic play. Nobody ever thinks about encountering such a genre of fate in a romantic play. But when you venture into the depths of Shakespeare’s play, you discover what a mastermind he was with plays.
React!