Fate and Chance as Antagonists in Romeo and Juliet
In V.iii.159, Friar Laurence said, "A greater power than we can contradict hath thwarted our plan." This quote sums up the reason for basically every bad event that occurred in Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet . Fate and chance are the two major elements that brought Romeo and Juliet together as lovers, but chance and fate brought them together with intent to use the lives and deaths of the two as part of a larger plan to reconcile the feuding Capulet and Montague families. Although the wrongs created by chance and fate were used to benefit this greater cause of ending the fight between the families, fate and chance should still be considered the greatest antagonists of the play. The meeting of the star-crossed pair, the deadly street fight that resulted in Romeo's banishment, and the failure of the Friar's letter to reach Romeo are all instances in which fate played an antagonistic role in Romeo and Juliet. Chance is an enormous factor in the beginning of the chain of events leading to the deaths of Romeo and Juliet. Without chance, there exists a very high likelihood that the two would have never met. By chance, Romeo got invited to and decided to attend the party. It was also chance that enabled Romeo to attend the g
If Benvolio had not mentioned in I. So, in reality, it was fate, not Shakespeare that directed the play, and it was the role of chance, not the actors that brought the play to life-and put Romeo and Juliet to their deaths. As stated in the paper "Fate in Romeo and Juliet", "Fate may have been trying to do more than bring the two (Romeo and Juliet) together. The happenings between Romeo and Juliet-"fate setting up their love"("Fate in Romeo and Juliet") and their deaths-were all part of fate's grandiose scheme to end the battle between the Capulet and Montague families. First of all, Romeo randomly wandered into Juliet's orchard. In addition, the failure of Friar Laurence's strategy for Romeo and Juliet was an event that would not have occurred without the negative effects of the chance of timing. In exchange for his services, Romeo was given this invitation to the event (I. In turn, there would not have been a need for the Friar to devise a drastic plan like the one he was forced to conjure up in the story. The deaths of the Capulet, Tybalt, and the Montague, Mercutio, and the banishment of Romeo relied heavily on events which depended upon chance alone. Also, by chance, Balthasar heard about Juliet's death and relayed the information to Romeo. In this circumstance, Romeo would not have been motivated to kill Tybalt, and therefore would never have been banished.
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