From "Monologue on Fate" to "Tragic End for Love": The Confrontation Between Free Will and Fatalism in Romeo and Juliet

Abstract

In Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare takes "fate" as an implicit narrative thread and constructs a dialectical relationship between free will and fatalism through characters' monologues, tragic conflicts, and symbolic techniques. Grounded in the context of Renaissance humanism and centered on textual analysis, this paper explores three dimensions: "the narrative foreshadowing of fate monologues",
"the practical dilemmas of free will", and "the confrontational nature of the mutual suicide ending". It reveals the characters' active pursuit of
romantic freedom under the constraints of fate, as well as the humanistic spirit and tragic value behind such striving. The study concludes that
the tragedy of the play does not stem from the irresistibility of fate, but from the fragmentation of free will amid real-world obstaclesand
this fragmentation precisely highlights the spiritual glory of human beings in their quest of independent choices.