Laurence's West Side Story and Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet
Laurence's West Side story is an apparition of Shakespeare's Romeo and
Juliet. West Side Story and Romeo and Juliet differ in many ways. Romeo and
Juliet is set in Verona in about 1594. West Side Story takes in New York City
in 1957. Tony is the modern character of Romeo and Maria is the modern
character of Juliet. In the two tragedies the major conflict is two opposing
families, or gangs, do not agree of the relationship of their child. This
conflict was resolved in a very tragic manner, one of the two couples killed
themselves the other couple just one got killed. When the death of the persons
happened is brought the two foes together. West Side Story and Romeo and Juliet
is indeed different in many ways.
Three incidents show Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story differs from
one another. The first thing shows the difference between Maria and Juliet, and
Romeo and Tony. When Juliet finds that her lover Romeo is dead Juliet kills
herself. Maria does not kill herself but instead she puts her sadness into
treating the two gangs with a gun. When Romeo finds Juliet supposedly dead he
drinks poison to kill himself too. Chino killed Tony because Chino was in love
with Maria but so was Tony. This is just one way that Romeo and Juliet differ
from West Side Story.
Another way the two stories differ is the wealth of the two families, or
gangs. At the beginning of Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare describes the
Montague's and the Capulet's houses. The size of the two houses shows how
wealthy the families are. In West Side Story the author only tells about the
Sharks dwelling. The Sharks live in an apartment which shows that the Sharks
are not wealthy. The Sharks and the Jets are very poor compared to the
Capulets'' and the Montagues'.
Swords were used in Romeo and Juliet and guns were used in West Side
Story. The reason guns were used in West Side Story was to make the story more
In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, the main character Janie struggles to find herself and her identity. Throughout the course of the novel she has many different people tell her who she should be and how she should behave, but none of these ideas quite fit Janie. The main people telling Janie who she should be is her grandmother and Janie’s 3 husbands. The people in Janie's life influence her search for identity by teaching her about marriage, hard work, class, society, love and happiness.
The play West Side Story, by Arthur Laurents, is based upon the play Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare. Despite a few differences, both works, in essence, have the same plot. The source of violence in Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story is the ever-present hatred between families and between gangs, although, because of the "star-cross’d lovers" motif in Romeo and Juliet, the hatred plays a larger role in producing the ending of West Side Story than it does the ending of Romeo and Juliet.
Paramount aspect of the movie and the play, the theme, were the same, and the overall messages in both were the same. For example, one main message in the stories was that love conquers all. This was demonstrated in both the play and the film when Romeo and Juliet kept secretly meeting each other even though they knew it was against their families’ wishes. In one scene of both the movie and the play Romeo and Juliet even got married and died together so that even if they could not be together on earth they would be together in death. Another message you learn from watching the movie and the play was that fighting solves nothing. In the play, when the two feuding families, the Montague’s and the Caplets, find their children dead they resolve their differences and agree to build a gold statue of Romeo and Juliet made out of gold after they state that their fighting only brought suffering. In the movie, although the families didn’t make up, you can infer that it was if the families and not been fighting that Romeo and Juliet would not have killed themselves, because they would not have to meet in secret and have Friar Lawrence devise a complicated plan so they could be together without their parents knowledge .
A Comparison of Scenes From West Side Story and Romeo and Juliet Cinematography The scene before the meeting scene in West Side Story Maria spins. around in her dress the camera then carries on spinning which creates a colourful blur effect on the screen. The effect makes her look like she is almost spinning into the next scene. When Tony and Maria met, all the other characters that were dancing.
Zora Neale Hurston, an acclaimed African-American writer, wrote the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God during a time when women did not have a large say in their marriages. The novel follows the main character Janie in her quest to find what she thinks is true love and happiness. Hurston highlights the idea of healthy and unhealthy relationships throughout Janie’s three marriages. Each marriage had its advantages but they were largely overshadowed by their disadvantages resulting in Janie learning the hard truth about married life for a women of color in the 1920s. Ultimately the reader and Janie learn that in order to be happy in a marriage you must love, learn, and lose from past relationship experiences to figure out what truly makes you
It has been nearly three decades since the last time Congress reformed our immigration system. From the Reagan era to the Obama administration, the country has undergone financial, social and political changes yet our immigration policies continue to be the same. Since the implementation of the last immigration reform in 1986, the United States government has spent nearly $187 billion ($220 billion when adjusted to 2013 dollars) in immigration enforcement agencies and programs alone (Meissner, Kerwin, Muzaffar & Bergeron, 2013). The high costs and the increasing public concern has led Americans to recognize the brokenness of our current immigration system and how it has not kept up with changing times. Research has shown 71% of Americans say undocumented immigrants should have a pathway to remain in the country legally (Pew Research Center, 2013). Although Congress and the White House have had numerous failed attempts to pass immigration reform in the past, H.R. 15 proposes an updated bipartisan system that can further secure the borders and solve problems surrounding immigration (Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act, 2013.
After the death of the Prophet Muhammad, the death of Islam was very possible. The Arab conquests were remembered merely as one of the history’s more improbable “might-have-beens”. It may easily have been the end, if not for the decisive action taken by the early Muslim leadership, notably by the first two caliphs (or successors of the Prophet). Like Muhammad
In Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie wants to find true love. Janie must go through hardships to find true love, she believes true love should blossom like a pear tree.
Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story both tell a story of two lovers who can not be together because of a feud. The characters in Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story are similar in their actions but are different in family background and their attitudes. Two characters that are similar, but different are Tybalt and Bernardo. The two characters had different attitudes and family backgrounds.Tybalt’s attitude was more daring, while Bernardo’s waited for the trouble to come to him first. Even though, Tybalt and Bernardo both come from different backgrounds, they have hatred toward the other side and the actions toward their enemies were the similar, which cost the lives of others and themselves.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 explains that, “love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7 NLT). Author Zora Hurston takes this definition of love and applies it to young Janie as she struggles to find her identity in the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. As Janie experiences three juxtaposing marriages, she recognizes that love doesn’t exist to appease a third party, requires respect, and truly “endures through every circumstance,” which aids her development into an independent woman (1 Corinthians 13:7b).
The romantic tension between Romeo and Juliet and Tony and Maria in Shakespears original play and its modern day remake, Westside Story, is what makes them have such passionate and entrancing scenes. The main reason for romantic tension in these two plays is because the two couples can’t be together like they want to be. There are many different aspects that create different quality of romantic tension in these two scenes. Although the two plays have similar plots, the romantic tension between the two lovers is very different because of the setting, the language and the circumstances in which the lovers face.
Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story share many similar themes. Romeo and Juliet both chronicle a story of overcoming prejudice and hatred, forbidden love, and defying stereotypes that nobody thought could be broken. The two stories are similar in a multitude of ways, even though their settings are centuries apart- Romeo and Juliet set in the 1500’s, and West Side Story set in the 1950’s. Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story both teach a lesson of how prejudice can teach you how to hate, and how one of your rivals may be the one who helps you remember how to love.
Instead of bloody fights, the movie puts in dance and singing scenes. The characters are also different because some of them are in relationships, while others even completely change their role. For example Bernardo is Maria’s brother in the story, while in the original play Tybalt plays her cousin. The nurse is also not in a relationship with anyone, while Anita is in a relationship with Bernardo and that fact drastically changes the storyline. Maria and Juliet are very different. While Maria is poor and has a job, Juliet is rich and is not employed. Towards the end of the original play Juliet kills herself after Romeo dies, but Maria doesn’t. Tony and Romeo also show quite a difference in character. Tony is a leader of a gang and poor, while Romeo is rich and married. In the end Romeo kills himself, while Tony is running away from Chino. Chino is similar to Paris in Romeo and Juliet, but a little different because Paris got killed by Romeo, while Chino slew Tony. Friar Laurence and the Doc are different in many ways.The Doc does not get very involved in their relationship, while Friar Laurence made some of the most important decisions in the story. West Side Story’s setting is set in the Upper West side of New York City in the late 1950s, while Romeo and Juliet is set mostly in Verona and Mantua, Italy. The musical is mostly set on the
"[. . . E]mblems of mafia gang-land hostility: guns, fast cars, and tattoos [. . .]" (Walker 5) are not the usual images found in a Shakespearean play. Baz Luhrmann's 1996 production of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is:
G. Esposito, John L (2002) Islam; What Everyone Should Know. New York. Oxford University Press Inc.