1. Objectives Romeo and Juliet themes 2 Date:
Take notes on the Romeo and Juliet themes.
Understand the representation of fate in the play.
Warm-up – take down the quote and question.
“From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life”
(Think for a moment about this play not being about love, or even Romeo and Juliet. Instead it is about some unknown power controlling events and ending the family feud.)

2. Introduction - Fate
The prologue introduces the two families, the Capulets and Montagues, and tells us they are cursed by fate. A girl from one side and a boy from another are doomed by the stars to fall in love and take their own lives.
The term ‘star-crossed lovers’ means that they were born under unlucky stars and are doomed from birth to see their hopes and dreams disappointed. No matter what anybody does, Romeo and Juliet cannot avoid the tragedy fate has in store for them.
(Write your own opinions on fate, destiny and free-will.)

3. Fate
As the play progresses, Romeo and Juliet sense that fate is working against them and express this idea quite often. As Romeo enters the Capulets home, he shudders at the thought of some unknown terror lying in wait to destroy him;
“For my mind misgives
Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars,
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date.....
.... some vile forfeit of untimely death” (Act 1.4)
(Might an audience enjoy this – is there hope Romeo can avoid or defeat fate? Why do we watch, knowing how this ends?)

4. Fate
Juliet senses that the happiness she gets from Romeo is too good to last, that it will leave suddenly and without warning;
It is “too like the lightning, which doth cease to be
Ere one can say ‘It lightens’.”
Her simile is, like many comparisons in the play, more accurate than she realises. Romeo’s love shall be as quick and destructive as lightning indeed.
(Natural disasters are always effective metaphors and similes. Can you think of more?)

5. Fate
Even when the characters seek to do good and change things, the world they live in continues on its destructive path. Romeo tries to break up the fight between Tybalt and Mercutio, only for it to result in Mercutio’s death. All Romeo can say is;
“I thought all for the best” (Act 3.1)
He then sees this as the start of his destruction, that fate has arranged incidents like Mercutio’s death and that there is more to come.
(The play is a chain of events starting with Rosaline. How many times can you say, this caused A, which caused B, which caused C...)

6. Fate
As Romeo leaves for Mantua, Juliet wonders if they will ever meet again. In spite of his efforts to console her, she has a horrifying and true vision of the future;
“O God, I have an ill-divining soul! (divining – seeing)
Methinks I see thee, now art so low,
As one dead in the bottom of a tomb” (Act 3.5)
She accurately pictures the next time she will see him, lying dead beside her as she wakes in the tomb. Romeo too sees these events in a dream before they happen, but shrugs it off.
(Again, the crowd know this is coming – why does he do this?)

7. Fate
Romeo can think of only one way to defy fate, one way to stop being a puppet to destiny and this is to kill himself. He sees this as deprive the stars of their power;
“And shake the yoke of inauspicious* stars *(unlucky)
From this world-wearied flesh”
It is ironic that this is exactly was fate planned from the beginning of the play.
(Think before we end – if one thing did change, would Romeo and Juliet still end up dead? Tybalt, Friar Laurence, etc...)

8. Cooldown
I think
I know
I wonder