Predetermination-or are our lives in our own hands?

Remember that Shakespeare was a humanist and believed that humans had a certain amount of responsibility for the way their lives turned out. In medieaval Europe, however, it was believed that the events in human life were predetermined, and that people's fates depended on the stars.
In his play "Romeo and Juliet", there is much mention of the stars and fate - "star-cross'd lovers", "I am fortunes fool", and "I defy you stars" are just some examples. However, what evidence is there in the play that Shakespeare thought that people brought their own downcomes upon themselves?

"I defy you, stars!", Romeo, (V, i)

Friar John never reaches Mantua because of fear of the plague. Balthasar, Romeo's man, having heard the dreadful news of Juliet's "death" , rushes to Romeo to tell him. Romeo buys some poison from a poor apothecary, which he intends to drink by Juliet's side. After a lot of commotion and a fight in which Romeo kills Paris, Romeo drinks the poison and dies next to Juliet "O you, The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kissA dateless bargain to engrossing death!Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide!Thou desperate pilot, now at once run onThe dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark!Here's to my love!"
Friar Laurence enters the Capulet tomb and sees Rome and Paris dead. Juliet wakes up and sees her love dead. Hearing to noise of coming guards, Friar Laurence urges Juliet to leave with him. She does not, but instead kisses Romeo so that the poison on his lips may kill her. It does not, and stabs herself with Romeo's dagger before the guards arrive, "O happy dagger!This is thy sheath;there rust, and let me die."
The Capulets, Montagues and Prince Escalus come onto the scene. The Prince chides the elders of the two families, "Capulet! Montague!See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate,That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love.And I for winking at your discords too Have lost a brace of kinsmen: all are punish'd". The two families decide to end the blood feud, and the Prince concludes:
"A glooming peace this morning with it brings;The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head:Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished:For never was a story of more woe Than this of Juliet and her Romeo."
...

Act IV

"O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,From off the battlements of yonder tower;Or walk in thievish ways; or bid me lurkWhere serpents are; chain me with roaring bears;Or shut me nightly in a charnel- house,O'er-cover'd quite with dead men's rattling bones,With reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls;Or bid me go into a new-made graveAnd hide me with a dead man in his shroud;Things that, to hear them told, have made me tremble;And I will do it without fear or doubt,To live an unstain'd wife to my sweet love." Juliet, (IV, i)
Juliet is truly horrified at the idea of marrying Paris and would rather die, as the quote above so picturesquely shows. In this act, Friar Laurence conjures up a plan that he intends will reunite the two young lovers. On the night before her wedding, Juliet is to drink a potion that will make her appear dead. She will then be placed in the family tomb. In the meantime, the Friar will send a letter to Romeo explaining the situation, and the latter will leave Mantua to be at Juliet's side when she wakes up. They will then escape. Or will they........?

Interactive folio

Take a look at this media-rich, interactive folio made on the play Romeo and Juliet. It contains audios and videos and a variety of resources. Someone did a good job!!

http://www.canadianshakespeares.ca/folio/folio.html