Explain how Shakespeare explores the idea of fate in Romeo and Juliet through his use of language and/or literary devices.
In Elizabethan England time it was believed that peoples lives were set out long before they were even born. William Shakespeare uses language features throughout his writing of Romeo and Juliet to explore this. Romeo and Juliet is a play about two lovers that are destined to die no matter what. Throughout the journey of the script, Shakespeare communicates to us that the characters in his text believe they do not control their life path, but it is left in the hands of God. He does this with the use of the prologue, metaphors and coincidences.
Metaphors are one of the most commonly used literary devices. They are often used by authors to understand a concept. Shakespeare has used them throughout his play to help us to understand that the characters believe they are following a path set out by God and everything happens because of fate. When Romeo states “He that hath the steerage of my course direct my sail.” This metaphor, allows us to understand that Romeo compares himself to a ship sailing on the sea with no control of its direction or path. This same concept of a ship on the sea is also used by Romeo just before he takes his life, he says “Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on the dashing rocks thy seasick, weary bark.” This is similar to the first quote, but in this metaphor, the ship is about to crash on the rocks. This links to fate because Romeo believes his life has been planned out from the start and like the ship it is about to come to an unexpected end.
Shakespeare has used the prologue to create the concept of fate and dramatic irony. Often a prologue sets the scene of a book or gives you a back story. In Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare decided to tell the readers the outcome of the play before we have even started reading. Doing this creates dramatic irony because we are known to information the characters don’t, this keeps us on the edge of our seats waiting for things to happen. A sense of fate is also created from learning the result before the start. It emphasizes that the characters have no control of their outcome instead God had planned their lives and endings out from the beginning. In the prologue, it says “From forth the fatal loins of these two foes a pair of star-crossed lovers take their life;” This shows that even before Romeo and Juliet were born they were destined to fall in love and die despite their families feuds. Normally in text you wouldn’t be told the ending first but in Romeo and Juliet, we read to discover the journey fate takes them on.
Im struggling on how to close the paragraphs and the coincidence paragraph