The idea of ‘fate’ is largely used in William Shakespeare’s play, ‘Romeo and Juliet’. He uses a number of devices to convey this belief, such as metaphors, foreshadowing and coincidental incidents. These techniques give us the concept that your life is already premeditated and laid out. This all relates to pinpoint the time and what life was like back in the Elizabethan era, where Shakespeare sets most of his plays.

Many times Romeo uses a ship as a metaphor for his life. The play uses this concept to push the idea of pre-determined fate being in control of everything, as a ship never controls its own path, there is always another factor directing it. Romeo communicates this by saying “He that hath the steerage of my course, direct my sail.” He revisits this metaphor of his life again towards the end of the play when Romeo goes to drink the poison and end his life he states, “Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on. The dashing rocks thy seasick weary bark”. He compares the poison to a ‘desperate pilot’ and is asking it to conduct his ‘bark’ into the dashing rocks. The fact that Romeo is asking for someone or something to end his life for him tells us that he doesn’t believe he has much decision in his actions and through this scene in particular looks to other things such as the apothecary, or poison to lead. Poison establishes the idea of Romeo’s sense of being uncontrolled or used by the acts of fate since it is a substance that your body does not have restraint over how it reacts towards poison. Shakespeare was raised in a culture where people believed God or a higher power was in charge of their fate. Most characters in the play, especially Romeos beliefs reflect this approach.

Shakespeare included an abundance of coincidences in that play that would’ve changed the outcome greatly if not of occurred. It reminds us again that no one has a say on the result of anything as everything that arises is already planned out by fate and completely out of our characters hands. A prime example of coincidence was when the illiterate servant happened to run into Romeo and asks “God ‘i’ good e’en. I pray, sir, can you read?”, basically requesting for help reading the invites to the Capulet ball. Romeo proceeds to take this as an opportunity to attend in hopes of moving on from Rosaline and meeting new women in Verona. The ball was a significant point in the play as it is where the two first met. It’s also by chance that this event is being held by the Capulet’s, the family rival of Romeos. And that Juliet, a Capulet, happens to catch his lovestruck-eyes over any other woman present. These events build to structure the unpropitious and doomed catastrophe we know to be the story of Romeo and Juliet.

Foreshadowing is a technique that links to fate with the idea of having an indication before something actually happens. Shakespeare uses this to foretell or hint the death of the two main protagonists. Juliet claims to see Romeo dying in her dreams and mentions “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 replies with “And trust me, love, in my eye so do you.” In an eery way, they basically declare with their gut feeling that they see each other dead in the near future. With the prologue stating that “A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life”, we know that Romeo and Juliet do indeed foreshadow each other’s deaths. Describing the two lovers to be ‘star-crossd’ means to be ill-fated or not going to end well. This relates back to the Elizabethans again as they relied a lot on gut feeling and the stars to tell destiny. Shakespeare drops many signs and keeps us hanging by hinting to us that things won’t work out and two young lives will end no matter the circumstances. We discover that despite our wish for their relationship to succeed, the characters or reader has no control over the outcome. This helps Shakespeare to make the idea of fate become more realistic to us by relating to real life, as sometimes no matter how much we want something to happen, it isn’t always possible.

In conclusion, this evidence shows us that fate is greatly responsible for the majority of incidents in the play. And most importantly the death of Romeo and Juliet. This never would’ve occurred if the pair hadn’t ever met, which was due to the illiterate reader stumbling along Romeo for help, a coincidence so compelling that could only be described as happened by fate. This doesn’t come as a surprise as we know Shakespeare clearly dropped multiple hints from the beginning so we already had a suspicion it would end in calamity. He did this through utter detail with metaphors, foreshadowing and many coincidences. The prologue even mentioned from the start that these star crossed lovers were predetermined for death. William Shakespeare expressed the belief of events being beyond our human control and that our lives are set out by fate. The idea that nearly anything can happen to you and cannot be changed by your own power because it’s your destiny. This is acknowledging the philosophy of peoples way of life and views back when Romeo and Juliet was set. Overall, that was William’s intention for this play, to guide us through a spiralling course of events caused by complete fate, leading to what is known as a ‘Shakespearean tragedy.’

By Sophia Perkins