Romeo And Juliet - FATE Flashcards
‘A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life’ -
destined to die. Use of stars as a metaphor to embody fates characteristics. The use of such a metaphor has multiple explanations; taking a more benign view of fate, it could be that its positive aspects are reflected in the beauty of ‘stars’. After all the ‘star-crossed lovers’ were brought together by fate and this is eventually what brought peace between the feuding families.
However, a more objective analysis -> the ‘stars’ metaphor - they are powerful balls of burning has gas, far beyond our reach, much as non of the characters can overpower or grapple with their own fates. Rather, like the stars in the night sky they are resolved to accept them.
‘O, I am fortunes fool!’
Said after Romeo kills Tybalt, While one could view this quote as a demonstration of romeos youthful petulance, we may sympathise with a character who, as implied in the prologue, was doomed to follow the wrong oath by forces far out of his control.
‘I fear, too early, for my mind misgives some consequence yet hanging in the stars’
Echoes the prologue.
Ironic passage, Romeo is too upset over Rosaline to go to the party and is adamant that he will not fall in love. But of course he does fall in love and it will be that which is ultimately responsible for his death. Going to the part does kill him, just not in the way that he thinks. Romeo expresses a sense of fear and foreboding saying he feels fated for an untimely death. This is foreshadowing
‘Mind misgives’ is a form of alliteration and has poetic cadence (a fall in pitch in the intonation of the voice) emphasising it’s importance.
‘Stars’ carries a sense of fateful foreboding, but will also permeate the way that Romeo and Juliet refer to each other. Shakespeare is essentially using double entendre that both fate and romeos soon-to-be ‘star’ will determine what’s to come.
“Then I defy you stars!”
It is arguably more churlish to temp to battle fate in this quote. The audience is already aware that the ‘star-cross’d lovers’ are fated to die, and that romeos defiance is thus in vain. It is also crucial that romeos refusal to accept fate is the very thing that dooms him and his lover; his return to Verona leads to the friars plan going wrong, and the couples tragic double suicide, thereby demonstrating the inescapable nature of fate.
