The terms fortune and fate are referred to many times throughout the play Romeo and Juliet. Fate is something that you cannot control and is out of your hands. If something is your fate, it will happen no matter what, whereas fortune is something that is driven by your actions but can be changed. If something is in your fortune, decisions you make can change the outcome. Shakespeare uses fortune and fate repeatedly throughout the play to set the mood or tone. One example of this is when Romeo says, "O, I am fortune's fool" (Shakespeare III.i.132). Romeo says this line after he had killed Juliet's cousin Tybalt. It was in his fortune that he killed Tybalt, but it could have been prevented or stopped with better decisions. Romeo didn't have to kill him but decisions that were made along the way led to Tybalt's death. This helps develop the mood of the scene because Romeo is feeling regret and he is wishing he hadn't killed Tybalt. He is worried that Juliet may be upset because Romeo killed her cousin and their relationship now lies in her hands. If Romeo hadn't given in to fortune's tricks and let it 'fool' him, things would have been much different. Another example of fortune and fate in Romeo and Juliet is when Romeo and Juliet are referred to as "star-cross'd lovers" (Shakespeare.Prologue.6). The term star-cross'd means ill-fated, which means that Romeo and Juliet are referred to as ill-fated lovers. It is their fate to not be together and no matter how hard they try to fight it, their fate will overpower them. Their love is spoken as "death-mark'd love" (Shakespeare.Prologue.9), which means doomed to death. These quotes set the mood of the entire play to be tragic and catastrophic, because the audience can guess already that it doesn't end well for poor Romeo and Juliet.
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