“Unhappy Fortune”: Tragic Fatalism in Romeo and Juliet
by Thomas Canfield
One of the most remarkable aspects of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is that fact that the audience knows the drama’s tragic outcome within the first eight lines. In the Prologue, the Chorus informs us that the play’s plot, in a nutshell, is thus: “A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life; / Whose misadventur’d piteous overthrows / Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife” (5-8). Indeed, Shakespeare consistently seems to be seeking to destroy our suspense throughout the play by utilizing devices such as foreshadowing, premonitions, dreams and portents. In doing so, the playwright constantly reminds the members of his audience that–no matter how desperately they may wish otherwise–this drama concerning the ill-fated children of the houses of Montague and Capulet must, and will, come to a tragic conclusion.
Whether or not Shakespeare himself believed in such prophetic signs is debatable, but he certainly found them quite useful as a dramatic device in several additional plays, including Julius Caesar and Macbeth, among others. Romeo and Juliet, however, swiftly driven by the impatient passions of youth, contains several not-so-subtle hints of the tragedy to come that the characters never pay much attention to or heed until it is too late. Perhaps Shakespeare’s opening warning to the audience about the tragic fate of the star-crossed lovers is the playwright’s means of alerting us beforehand to look for signs of the protagonists’ impending downfall throughout the drama. Yet, such techniques also underscore an inescapable fatalism that constantly hovers over the irreverent characters, preoccupied as they are with their own immediate concerns.
In 1.3, Romeo joins Mercutio, Benvolio and several other disguised maskers in preparation to gate-crashing the Capulet celebration. Romeo then announces to his comrades that he has “dream’t a dream to-night” (1.4.49). However, he does not have an opportunity to provide any specific details of the dream–or to speculate on its import–because the witty Mercutio launches into a protracted, lively and fanciful speech about Queen Mab who rides her chariot “over men’s noses as they lie asleep” (1.4.57). In fact, Mercutio’s interminable ruminations on the fairy world only come to an end when Romeo interrupts by begging him to stop. Thus diverted from reflecting on the significance of his dream, Romeo is left only with the general impression that “some consequence yet hanging in the stars / Shall bitterly begin his fearful date / With this night’s revels . . .” (1.4.107-09).
Juliet also makes several prophetic statements that foreshadow the events to come. After her initial encounter with Romeo later that evening, Juliet sends her nurse to follow him and find out his name. Already head over heels in love, Juliet tells the nurse to “Go ask his name.–If he be married, / My grave is like to be my wedding bed” (1.4.134-35). The obvious irony in this statement is that, once Romeo is married–to Juliet–her grave and bridal bed do ultimately become one and the same. Similarly, in 3.5, the newly-wedded couple parts after spending the night together–which is the last time they will see each other alive. Juliet expresses a dark sense of foreboding at their separation, telling Romeo that:
O God, I have an ill-divining soul!Romeo, however, merely dismisses these feelings as a manifestation of Juliet’s grief in parting for the moment, rather than viewing them as a significant omen of ill import.
Methinks I see thee now, thou art so low,
As one dead in the bottom of a tomb,
Either my eyesight fails, or thou lookest pale (3.5.54-57)
Other characters also presage a grim ending to the play’s events, though they simultaneously act in a manner that is contrary to their intuition. Friar Laurence expresses reservations about marrying the couple, fraught with irrational passion as they are, by stating that “These violent delights have violent ends, / And in their triumph die, like fire and powder, / Which as they kiss consume” (2.2.9-11). Nevertheless, seeing their irrepressible determination to be with each other, the friar flies in the face of his own advice and joins the couple in matrimony. Later that same afternoon, when Mercutio–who belongs to neither the house of Capulet or Montague–refuses to heed Benvolio’s request to abandon the streets of Verona because “the Capels [are] abroad, / And if we meet we shall not scape a brawl,” he is subsequently slain by Tybalt (3.1.2-4).
As he is dying, Mercutio curses both families, stating “a plague a’ both your houses!” (3.1.99-100), another statement which certainly proves true in the context of the play’s outcome. Romeo himself knows that the death of Mercutio is an unfortunate twist of fate, and thus he foretells that “This day’s black fate on moe days doth depend, / This but begins the woe others must end” (3.1.119-120). Indeed, Romeo’s statement proves to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. His anger at the death of his friend causes Romeo to slay Tybalt immediately afterwards, resulting in his subsequent assertion that “I am fortune’s fool!” (3.1.136), before he is banished by Prince Escalus.
While exiled in Mantua, Romeo awaits news of Juliet from Friar Laurence and experiences yet another dream that bodes ill, although he incorrectly interprets it in a positive light:
ROMEO: If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep,At this particular point in the drama, Romeo’s exile, rendering him bereft of his heart’s desire, seems like death to him. Thus the hero interprets the dream, which depicts Juliet’s arrival and his subsequent resurrection, symbolically rather than literally. In fact, Romeo will lie dead in the Capulet tomb on the very same night. His bride will discover him. And she will, indeed, kiss his still-warm lips–before killing herself.
My dreams presage some joyful news at hand. . . .
I dreamt my lady came and found me dead–
Strange dream, that gives a dead man leave to think!–
And breath’d such life with kisses in my lips
That I reviv’d and was an emporer. (5.1.1-2, 6-9)
After arriving at Juliet’s tomb, Romeo sends away his servant, Balthasar. However, intuitively stating that “His looks I fear, and his intents I doubt,” Balthasar conceals himself nearby to keep an eye on his master’s actions (5.3.44). Yet we hear no more of Balthasar until the arrival of Friar Laurence. In the meantime, Romeo kills Paris, enters Juliet’s tomb and commits suicide. When the friar arrives, Balthasar, who has been asleep, relates a prophetic dream to the holy man: “As I did sleep under this [yew] tree here, / I dreamt my master and another fought / And that my master slew him” (5.3.136-38). In this instance, sleep hinders the concerned servant from preventing the tragic outcome of the play. Yet the dream that accompanies Balthasar’s slumber simultaneously mirrors exactly what is occurring just a few feet away in the real world.
Despite all the obvious signs, Shakespeare’s tragedy of the two star-crossed lovers comes to a heart-rending conclusion. Yet such a tragic fatalism is inherently part and parcel of the notion of star-crossed lovers themselves. Their divine love and unfortunate deaths are written in the book of fate before they even meet, and thus any human attempt to thwart either, as repeatedly exemplified in the play, is futile.
