Theme of fate in Romeo & Juliet - GCSE coursework
Shakespeare Controlled Assessment - Draft
Despite fate’s grasp on Romeo and Juliet being clear from the beginning, their choices in the play cause fate to build momentum and accelerate their lives to their inevitable end. Shakespeare’s original presentation of fate is of an inescapable event, but how the characters get there is less certain and more chance. Whereas Luhrmann’s fate is cruller and more controlling, but both interpretations of fate have the result of uniting the feuding families.
Fate commands the lives of the characters from birth, with their deaths predetermined by generations of feuding and violence. In the prologue Shakespeare reveals the traumatic ending, that “a pair of star-crossed lovers take their life” before it happens, possibly because this complements the idea that their lives have already been decided. The prologue is written as a sonnet, a 14 line poem usually about love, but hear instead describes death. Romeo and Juliet’s lives are deeply intertwined, shown by the use of the singular “life” and they will die together. In Baz Luhrmann’s interpretation of Romeo and Juliet the prologue is presented first by a news reader, who appears on a small fuzzy TV, but then again as news headlines and a non-diegetic voice over. By showing the parents as this line is read out it appears to lay blame on the families, showing Romeo and Juliet had no control in their own deaths. However fate’s purpose in the play is for reconciliation between the families. “Which but their children’s end naught could remove”.
As well as fate’s close association with the stars, Shakespeare also presents fate as an inevitable consequence of past actions. After the Montagues and Capulet’s fight in the first scene we are given false hope that fate may be overpowered, with the princes threat that their “lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace” however, from the prologue we know fate will persist so instead forebodes of greater consequences next time. Luhrmann
Despite fate’s grasp on Romeo and Juliet being clear from the beginning, their choices in the play cause fate to build momentum and accelerate their lives to their inevitable end. Shakespeare’s original presentation of fate is of an inescapable event, but how the characters get there is less certain and more chance. Whereas Luhrmann’s fate is cruller and more controlling, but both interpretations of fate have the result of uniting the feuding families.
Fate commands the lives of the characters from birth, with their deaths predetermined by generations of feuding and violence. In the prologue Shakespeare reveals the traumatic ending, that “a pair of star-crossed lovers take their life” before it happens, possibly because this complements the idea that their lives have already been decided. The prologue is written as a sonnet, a 14 line poem usually about love, but hear instead describes death. Romeo and Juliet’s lives are deeply intertwined, shown by the use of the singular “life” and they will die together. In Baz Luhrmann’s interpretation of Romeo and Juliet the prologue is presented first by a news reader, who appears on a small fuzzy TV, but then again as news headlines and a non-diegetic voice over. By showing the parents as this line is read out it appears to lay blame on the families, showing Romeo and Juliet had no control in their own deaths. However fate’s purpose in the play is for reconciliation between the families. “Which but their children’s end naught could remove”.
As well as fate’s close association with the stars, Shakespeare also presents fate as an inevitable consequence of past actions. After the Montagues and Capulet’s fight in the first scene we are given false hope that fate may be overpowered, with the princes threat that their “lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace” however, from the prologue we know fate will persist so instead forebodes of greater consequences next time. Luhrmann