Bob Garrard
Do you believe in fate? To answer the question, you must first have a correct idea of what fate is.
A definition of fate would be the power that is supposed to settle ahead of time how things will
happen. Could there be such a power that rules our lives, and if so, why? Romeo and Juliet, the
two young lovers in William Shakespeare' s Romeo and Juliet, ended up becoming a large part of
what could be called "fate". Fate seemed to control their lives and force them together, becoming
a large part of their love, and the ending of their parent's hatred. Fate became the ultimate control
power in this play, and plays a large part in modern everyday life, even if we don't recognize it.
Maybe we don't recognize it because we choose not to, or don't have faith like we used to, but
the fact remains that fate controls what we do throughout all of our lives.
A large part of the beliefs for both Romeo and Juliet involve fate. They believed in the stars, and
that their actions weren't always their own. Romeo, for example, 1.4.115-120, he says, "Some
consequence yet hanging in the stars...by some vile forfeit of untimely death. But he that hath the
steerage over my course Direct my sail." He's basically saying to his friends that he had a dream
which leads him to believe that he will die young because of something in the stars, something that
will happen. He ends with "...he that hath steerage over my course..." which implies that he does
not have control over his life if he looks to another power above himself to direct him. He does
not feel that he is the one who makes decisions, it is all a higher purpose, a different power. We're
all sort of like the puppets below the puppeteer. He's asking for that puppeteer to direct his "sail,"
or his life, in the right direction.
Fate directs us all like the puppets on the end of it's string,...