Yesterday, I was talking to Antonella and she asked me "what do you think it would have happened if Romeo and Juliet would have had WhatsApp?" Well, first I laughed at her but then I realized that it was a really good question to introduce the topic of my post.
If Romeo and Juliet would have had WhatsApp, I think that they would not have been together anyway because that is not the way that it was meant to be.
As it is stated in the prologue of the play they were "a pair of star-crossed lovers take their life," which means that fate had control over them. Fate is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as "a power that some people believe controls what will happen" and it is commonly related to the star's will. In the play, we can see from the beginning how fate surrounds the events that occur to the lovers: they belong to families that hate each other. Then the accidents that ruin Friar Lawrence's plans to help Juliet not to marry Paris without disobeying her father, and at the end, the unopportune awakening of Juliet just after Romeo's suicide.
Fate controled the lovers; it was a powerful force that carry them to death. So as much as Romeo and Juliet would have organized their escape by texting each other, they would not have made it. I think that maybe Romeo's phone would have been out of battery or something tragic.
What do you think about the inevitable fate in the play? Do you believe it is a force present in your life too?
Sources:
http://shakespeare.about.com/od/romeoandjuliet/a/romeo_fate.htm
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/
http://shakespeare.about.com/od/romeoandjuliet/a/romeo_fate.htm
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/
Well, paying attention to your post's title, I think that if Romeo and Juliet had had Whatsapp, they would have definitely done some sexting, at least. You know, dirty minded teenagers. Or on the other hand, they would have been like these really annoying teenage couples that send texts filled with emojis every second of every minute of every hour to their gfs or bfs.
ResponderEliminarNow paying attention to your two final questions, I think that fate was the main force that moved both protagonists. Fate is what kept them from being together, from living and making their dreams come true. Fate made them come from completely different families, it is what made them die and most importantly, fate is what made them meet each other. If fate hadn't acted the way it did, Romeo and Juliet would have never met and this story would now be pretty boring and predictable: she would have married Paris, he would have been overly happy and Juliet would have become a miserable woman.
I'm not sure whether fate is a force present in my life. I think I'd say no, it's not. I'm pretty sure I wasn't supposed to go to college, for example, and here I am, I'm a senior student. Another example is, of course, that due to my "socioeconomic background", I wasn't supposed to go and study abroad, but I managed to do it anyway. Fate of course predetermines our destiny, but I think that any person is able to change the events that occur in their lives if they try hard enough. Maybe Romeo and Juliet didn't play it smart? I don't know.
Este comentario ha sido eliminado por el autor.
ResponderEliminarHello, María Andrea! When I read your entry, I could not prevent myself from thinking how great it would have been if Romeo and Juliet had had WhatsApp (or at least an old-fashioned cell phone) because when I read the novel, I was so angry when Romeo did not receive the letter with the plan (and that ruined everything). Nevertheless, the author wanted that. Fate or not, I agree with you when you say that Romeo’s phone would have run out of battery, signal, or credits. The author seemed to like this kind of endings: the sad ones.
ResponderEliminarNow, I agree with María José: we can change our destiny. I think we control our lives, what happens to us has to do with our decisions. However, this is because we are real people. Romeo and Juliet did not have that; they were limited to what their author wanted, and what did he want? The young lovers’ death.
I could not agree more with the three of you. On the one hand I do think that they would have died anyway, for any reason, they would not have communicated with eachother because their fate was to die for the other. As Javiera pointed out, many people as we were really angry with Shakespeare for killing the young couple, maybe we really like love stories with a happy ending, maybe it has to do with the fact that we were all told the story of prince charming, I dont really know. What I know for real is that their sacrife was the ultimate signal of their love through which their families could think about the hate to one another, and reflect about it, maybe that is what Shakespeare wanted us to see. But why killing so many people on the way?? Who know, maybe he was obsessed with death.
ResponderEliminarOn the other hand, I do believe that destiny has our lives drawn in the sky, or somewhere else, but we are the owners of our lives and we ARE to change the course of it if we want to, if we make an effort to achieve our goals in life and we can manage to bend fate in their direction.
And when I thought of R&J having whatsapp, I just did not think of fate, I would say it was just the imagery of triumphant love over everything. But then I remembered fate and all destiny staff that said they were meant to die. Sad, but true, that is the way Shakespeare shows us that fate lives are not to be changed, that is the reason why we should not live in appearances and find our true selves!
hahhahaha Maria Jose!!...I could not agree more with the four of you girls....It would have been easier for them if Romeo and Juliet had had Whatsapp, but they would have died anayway because their fate was written, I mean that's the whole idea of the story.
ResponderEliminarRegarding fate, I agree with the idea that we are the ones who can control and shape our lives, but I think that lucky is an important element in some people's life.