Out of all the concepts we’ve come
across so far, the idea of fate has caught a particular interest with me.
Shakespeare’s characters seem to rely on what they believe their lives are
destined to be more than how their own actions can shape their future. Calling
upon the “wheel of fortune”, gods, goddesses, and spirits alike, Shakespeare
uses this Medieval ideal to create intriguing plays.
Using the Shakespeare Concordance, I
wanted to know about fate within “All’s Well That Ends Well.” Before searching,
I expected to find many terms throughout the play that were tied to fate and I
expected to see a majority of the main characters using them. I searched a few
terms that I remember were correlated with fate. “Fated” came up two times for
the play, and the terms “stars” and “goddess” came up three times each. The
interesting thing about this is that Helena was the person who was using most
of these terms. She relied heavily on fate and that she was destined to end up
with Bertram. This idea of Helena’s belief in a system that was beyond her
reach could be turned into an argument that looked into other characters from
other Shakespearean plays who also believed in fate.
Some other questions I thought of
while doing this search was the idea of multiple religions/beliefs being used
at once. Though Christianity was so popular at the time, there were still
influences of older religions and their appearances through the beliefs and
actions of characters. Also, though England (Protestantism) was separated from
all things Catholic, and therefore Roman, why are there so many appearances of
Rome in Shakespeare’s plays? Was this a reflection of Shakespeare’s own
thoughts?
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