Romeo And Juliet And West Side Story Analysis

Comparison and Contrast Essay The most widely known William Shakespeare play is "Romeo and Juliet". Since he wrote this play in 1951, there have been many remakes and spins put on his original idea. One of these renditions is a play called "The West Side Story". West Side Story is an energetic, widely-acclaimed musical, a modern-day, loose re-telling of Shakespeare 's Romeo and Juliet tragedy of feuding families. The two stories are similar in a multitude of ways, even though their settings are centuries apart. Romeo and Juliet is set in the 1500’s, and West Side Story set in the 1950’s. Shakespeare 's Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story both have a lot in common as well as major differences that set them apart including the settings, characters,

Both plays begin with a fight between the rival groups. In both plays, the main characters meet at a dance. Both Juliet and Maria have arranged marriages that they are not happy about. Throughout each play, the main characters are afraid of their families finding out about them seeing each other and frustrated that they have to hide their love. In both plays, when a fight happens, both Romeo and Tony kill their girlfriend 's relative; however in spite of this, both Juliet and Maria forgive them. Romeo and Tony both die at the end of the play. A major difference between these two plays is that in the end of Romeo and Juliet, Juliet kills herself, however in the end of West Side Story, Maria is still alive. While Juliet reacts to the death of her lover by taking her own life, Maria reacts to Tony 's death by causing the fighting gangs to see the consequences of their feuding and find peace with each other. Also, both of these plays end with the families, or groups, united for a

The prejudice is so influential, that the act of hating them becomes as common as their mere existence.In Romeo and Juliet, there are two distinct groups of people, the Montagues and the Capulets- Romeo a Montague and Juliet a Capulet. The Montagues and Capulets have hated each other for as long as anyone can remember and for no apparent reason at all. In West Side Story, there are also two distict groups. The musical explores the rivalry between the Jets and the Sharks, two teenage street gangs of different ethnic backgrounds. The members of the Sharks, from Puerto Rico, are taunted by the Jets, a Caucasian gang. These rivalries have no distinct beginning point, yet both rivalries are forgotten and the two groups learn to get along at the end of both