According to Romeo and Juliet, it would seem that we do not determine our own destiny. There are a great many references to fate in this text and how the characters are, essentially, powerless against it. Even in the prologue, phrases like "fatal loins" and "star-crossed lovers" would seem to indicate that characters have no control over their futures (lines 5,6). Romeo and Juliet were produced by their parents' "fatal loins" and are "star-crossed," meaning that the stars, or fate, seems to have made it impossible for them to be together. Moreover, the Chorus explains that their love is "death-marked"; in short, they are doomed even before they have met.

Later, in act 1, scene 4, Romeo's friends try to convince him to go to the party at the Capulets' house, but he does not want to go. Finally, Mercutio and Benvolio prevail on him, though he predicts something terrible to come. He says that he fears "Some consequence yet hanging in the stars" that will begin with the party tonight and end with his "untimely death" (1.4.114,118). In other words, Romeo has a sense that he is somehow compelled to go to this party, fated, by "he that hath the steerage of [Romeo's] course" (1.4.119). He feels bound to go, even though he has this scary premonition that it will all lead to his own demise.

As a result of these kinds of references, and others, the play conveys the idea that we are not in control of our own destinies but that they are determined for us by fate.