Comparing Solomon and Gaeynor to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

Solomon and Gaeynor is little more than another, more modern version of Romeo and Julliet. The basic story line in Solomon and Gaeynor is about a couple who fall deeply in love, but face the problem that their families are very different, and would never agree to a marriage between the two of them. Similarly in Romeo and Julliet, a young couple fall hopelessly in love, but due to the dispute amongst the two families, it is not possible for them to marry, and live happily ever after.

Solomon, a young Jewish man meets a welsh girl, whilst he is going from door to door in order to sell cloth for making clothes. They fall in love within a short period of time, however Gaeynor is not aware that Solomon comes from a Jewish background. Likewise his family do not know of his Welsh lover. After he meets Gaeynors family and is halfway accepted by the them, Gaeynor becomes rather suspicous that he is keeping their relationship so secret, and that he has never presented her to his family.

In Romeo and Julliet a similar barrier stands between the two lovers, however in this case both the lovers were aquainted with the fact. The main difference however is that in Romeo and Julliet the lovers are being held apart by a war, which divides the two families. In comparison, Solomon and Gaeynor are being kept apart by the fact that they derive from different religious backgrounds. Gaeynor is of Jewish origin, and as has often been so in the course of history, the Jewish people have been hated by the local population, and were blamed for local...

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...meo and Julliet there was no baby that added to the confusion of the situation. However in Solomon and Gaeynor, the latter becomes pregnant, and as a result creates a greater bond between the two lovers, aswell as adding to the complication of the situation.

All in all though, both of these couples suffered a very similar fate, and had their love and feelings for each other surpressed by the society, and especially the family. Certain subtle differences do appear in the two stories, as well as a difference in the location and time, but when one looks at the basic structure of both stories, we arrive at the same result. Two young people fall in hopelessly in love, and everything ends in a disaster, as one of them (or both) die fighting for something that their family hated them for.