Fate is a theme that occurs in many plays and has different roles in each play. In Greek plays, fate was decided by the Gods and men could not change it. In some plays, fate is controlled by men. In The Barber of Seville, fate is controlled by men, as Count Almaviva and Figaro do their best to get Rosine to marry the Count.

As the play starts out, Rosine seems to be destined to marry Bartholo. However, Count Almaviva is determined to marry Rosine. After seeing her in Spain, Almaviva followed Rosine to Seville because his “happiness lies in Rosine’s affection” (39). Almaviva meets his friend Figaro on the street of Seville. Figaro is Bartholo’s barber so he has access to Bartholo’s home, where Rosine resides. Figaro creates a plan to smuggle the Count into the house disguised as a drunken soldier so that he can talk to Rosine.  When the Count is in the house, he hands Rosine a not instructing her to get into an argument with Bartholo. At a later time, the Count comes back disguised as a music teacher and Rosine argues with Bartholo. The Count bribes the real music teacher to play along with his scheme because the real music teacher arrived to give music lessons to Rosine at the same time as the Count. The music teacher later reveals to Bartholo that he was bribed so Bartholo tells Rosine a vicious lie about the Count. Rosine gets upset at the Count but when the Count sees her at a later time still disguised and reveals who he is, Rosine falls back in love with him. After much protest from Bartholo, he lets Rosine marry the Count.

It is evident throughout this play that men control fate. Figaro helped the Count in his pursuit of Rosine. There were several instances were it seemed that the Count’s plan would fail, yet the Count did not give up and kept making new plans to change Rosine’s fate.