How does William Shakespeare explore fate in his play Romeo and Juliet? This is the question that my essay is based on. In this essay I will explain and give examples of fate in Romeo and Juliet. Fate is a power or force that predetermines events in our lives and is unchangeable. The description of fate in the Oxford Dictionary is, “The development of events outside a persons control regarded by a supernatural power.”

When Romeo says “yet hanging in the stars,” before the Capulet party he is saying that he    has a feeling that something will happen that night that will affect the rest of his life. It does, Romeo falls in love with Juliet which in turn leads to their suicides. Throughout the play both Romeo and Juliet give references about their up coming death. In act 1 scene 5 Juliet says to Nurse “Go ask his name if he be married my grave is like to be my wedding bed.”

In the 14th century where the play was set nearly everyone was religious and they thought that god gave them life, that it was a gift and if you took your life that it was a sin so Romeo and Juliet killing them selves was against gods will. when Romeo finds out from Balthasar that Juliet is dead  (she is not but only friar Lawrence knows)  he says ” I defy you stars,” meaning that he rejects God in what he is about to do.

William Shakespeare uses fate in his play to make it realistic because fate happens sometimes in real life, nearly everyone in Verona where the play was set was religious their faith was a huge part of their lives therefore they believed that fate was gods work and that he decided what would happen in your life.

If william Shakespeare had not used fate in Romeo and Juliet the play would be uninteresting because nothing unusual or out of the blue would happen, it would mean that they would not meet which would change the whole course of events, without fate in the play there would be no Romeo and Juliet.