Fate's Role in Tragedy in Romeo and Juliet

Fate’s Role in Tragedy In works such as Jean Anouilh’s Antigone, William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, and Baz Luhrmann Romeo and Juliet film, the idea of fate plays a huge role in the tragedy specifically when the characters feel as though they don’t have control in it. All 3 characters show somewhere in each piece that they feel as if they are a pawn to fate whether it is through them saying it directly or through a symbol such as water in Baz Luhrmann’s interpretation. This feeling is what leads up to the eventual tragic ending which is what makes a piece a tragedy.
In Antigone, Antigone makes it obvious that her fate has been pre-determined for her. At the beginning of the story, when she is talking to her sister, Ismene, Ismene tells her that she would rather not die. Antigone replies by saying, “I’d prefer not to die, myself” (Anouilh 11). This is one of the subtle examples of Antigone feeling as though she has no power over what happens to her because she is in the hands of fate. This feeling of not being able to control her fate is one of the main reasons why she insists on having Creon kill her. This idea is affirmed when Creon, after condemning Antigone to death tells the chorus that “No man on Earth was strong enough to dissuade her. Death was her purpose, and she was not able to change that” (Anouilh 45). Towards the end of their argument, even Creon begins to realize that there is nothing he can do to stop her because she is in the hands of fate. Antigone’s feeling of not being able to escape that fate is what led to the tragic ending of her killing herself and Creon losing everything. Had she felt that she was able to take back her life, then the story would not be able to be referred to as a tragedy. In Baz Luhrmann’s film interpretation of William Shakespeare’s classic, the characters do not go out and say that they feel as though they are just fate’s puppet, but the symbol of water is enough to show that the characters are not able to