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Fate And Free Will In Romeo And Juliet

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Although the play “Romeo and Juliet” is lauded as one which excellently portrays unconquerable love, the most prominent theme of the play is not that of unconquerable love but rather of the death and tragedy that stems out from Romeo and Juliet disobeying fate for their own desires. This theme of relationship between fate and free will is present throughout the play and even emphasized through the use of literary elements. One such example of this theme being emphasized through the use of literary elements is the prologue. The prologue of the play employs the literary elements of alliteration, rhyme and foreshadowing to convey the theme of the relationship between fate and freewill, claiming that attempting to defy fate will leads to misfortune. While the context of the prologue itself may suggest that the defiance of fate by Romeo and Juliet has led to the ending of the feud between their two respective families, the prologue also emphasizes the tragedy that stems out from the defiance of fate. It does this through the use of the literary element of alliteration. Such as in the lines “Doth with death”, where the consonant “D” is repeated, the alliteration within the prologue serves to emphasize words such as death which …show more content…

Being a sonnet, the prologue contains iambic pentameter, containing one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable. This means that words such as grudge, fatal, foes, death and strife are emphasized. Such as in the aforementioned case of alliteration emphasizing words such as these, with negative implications, will naturally make the tragic end of the two lovers stand out more to the audience and thus show the results of the theme of relationship between free will and fate, claiming that if free will were to be used to defy fate, it will end in a

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