“Free will carried many a soul to hell, but never a soul to heaven” Charles Spurgeon states, meaning that how free will leads to a tragic end. By following the flow of fate, it will guide the others positively rather than negatively. In The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare the two main characters, Romeo and Juliet, are fated to be “star-crossed lovers” with a horrendous end. These two lovers, knowing that they are from feuding families, continues to follow their own pleasures and ignores possible consequences. Although the prologue states how Romeo and Juliet portray as star-crossed lovers, their irrational decisions made throughout the play brought upon their death through their obsession with each other.

The star-crossed lover’s foolish decisions made through their unhealthy obsession with each other, brought upon their departure. Both Romeo and Juliet believes that their first interaction was true love and worth the sacrifice because even when conflicted with the idea of their families they still ended up neglecting their family issues. But their obsession over each other causes them to result in foolish decision making and steered their lives into a dead end. For instance, once Romeo found out about Juliet’s “death” after being banished, he goes out of his way to get a highly deadly and illegal poison that the apothecary refuses to sell and says “To Juliet’s grave, for there must I use thee” in order to die (V.i.91). To die next to Juliet is the final decision Romeo made for himself by going through as much trouble as he could to obtain the poison himself. Although the apothecary is very poor and is need of the money he tries to stop Romeo from purchasing the poison, but Romeo desperately continues to attempt to convince the apothecary to bargain for the sake of being with Juliet.

Through Romeo’s actions, it shows how much fate was trying to stop him from obtaining a dangerous item. If fate had stopped him, he would still be alive and would find out that Juliet was actually drugged and alive. However his free will affects the play, causing his soul to “be carried to hell.” Overall, their foolish decisions by following their free will ends up triumphing fate by their obsessions with each other.

In conclusion, Romeo and Juliet’s irrational decisions made throughout the play brought unpleasant endings by their obsessions for each other. By following free will they made a new future rather than the fate that was bound to happen. Currently in society, we are given a fate to begin with but as we live, we make our own decisions to control our own lives. Given choices to choose, good or bad, they do not lead to fate since our free will affects our future.

<Ashley Choi Granada Hills Charter High School 10th Grad>