In the opening Prologue of Romeo and Juliet, the Chorus refers to the title characters as “star-crossed
lovers,” an allusion to the belief that stars and planets have the power to control events on Earth. This
line leads many readers to believe that Romeo and Juliet are inescapably destined to fall in love and
equally destined to have that love destroyed. However, though Shakespeare’s play raises the possibility
that some impersonal, supernatural force shapes Romeo and Juliet’s lives, by the end of the play it
becomes clear that the characters bear more of the responsibility than Fortune does.
Though the Prologue offers the first and perhaps most famous example of celestial imagery in Romeo
and Juliet, references to the stars, sun, moon, and heavens run throughout the play, and taken as a
whole that imagery seems to express a different view of human responsibility. In Act 1, scene 4, Romeo
says that he fears “some consequence yet hanging in the stars” when he and his gang approach the
Capulet’s ball. In his next mention of stars, however, Romeo doesn’t refer to their astrological power.
Rather, he uses the image of stars to describe Juliet’s otherworldly beauty. Most of the subsequent
celestial images in the play follow in this vein, from Romeo’s love–struck comparison of Juliet to the sun
to Juliet’s own wish to “cut [Romeo] out into little stars” when he dies. Throughout the play, these astral
images are more often associated with the two lovers than with divine fate, emphasizing that, as the
play’s action escalates, we cannot simply place the blame for the tragedy on some impersonal external
force.
It’s true that Romeo and Juliet have some spectacularly bad luck. Tybalt picks a fatal fight with Romeo
on the latter’s wedding day, causing Capulet to move up the wedding with Paris. The crucial letter
from Friar Lawrence goes missing due to an ill-timed outbreak of the plague. Romeo kills himself mere
moments before Juliet wakes up. It’s also true that the lovers aren’t solely responsible for their difficult
situation: Their friends, their families, and their society each played a role in creating the tragic
circumstances. However, even if we allow that fate or some other divine force caused Romeo and Juliet
to fall in love at first sight, thereby setting the action into motion, Shakespeare makes it clear that the
characters’ own decisions push that situation to its tragic conclusion. Either Romeo or Juliet, it is