Romeo and Juliet at Shakespeare to the West Side Story
Romeo and Juliet is a remarkable love story that anyone would be excited to know about the scene in Shakespeare’s play that reflects in the play which is love, tragedy, and death. Romeo and Juliet on Shakespeare present many similarities and as well a lot differences to compare the West Side Story. Juliet, shows her greater love for Romeo. Juliet with her strong character resists her parent’s decision by refusing to marry Paris. She decided to listen to her heart. In fact, it is a lot easy in the West Side Story for Tony and Maria make any decision because parents were really not involve. Maria and Tony secretly decided to make the decision to marry without consent of their parents. Although, love is common on both stories. Unfortunately, the lovers of both stories suffer from their relationship until it leads to death. Romeo is the classic Shakespearian lover. In the play, he matures from adolescence to adulthood as a result of his love for Juliet. Even Capulet recognizes Romeo as a noble youth. And to say “Verona brags of him to be a virtuous and well-govern’d youth” (1.5 ). Romeo is a young man with a good
…show more content…
Juliet takes time to consume her love with Romeo, and for Maria it is like love at first sight, because on the first meeting and the first dance, they exchange their first kiss. But both stories Romeo and Juliet; The West Side Story have a similar balcony scene. Romeo in the darkness says, “But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun” (2.2.1021). Romeo in his comparison from the dark to the light makes him have good reasons to live. The lovers, Romeo and Juliet take advantage of this special moment to meet together to kiss and have their gentle touch in the balcony. Moreover, Maria and Tony uses the same balcony scene to express their love for one other. These lovers are inseparable until
Romeo and Juliet, written by William Shakespeare, is a story of two young lovers. These two hearts, Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet belong to feuding families. The family feud causes them to keep their love a secret and therefore only Romeo, Juliet, Benvolio, the Nurse and Friar Lawrence know of their love. Romeo and Juliet are able to look past the feud and let themselves fall in mad love with the other. They let themselves do almost anything for the other and at times it seems like too much to do, even for the one they love. Although fate and character traits play a key role in the play, ultimately Rome and Juliet’s personal choices lead to their downfall.Fate originates all of the conflicts in Romeo and Juliet, from when they met until they die.
...and Juliet, when they marry, must marry secretly because of the feud. However, Maria and Tony do not marry, although they do perform a mock wedding. Another example of a difference is that Anita purposely tells the Jets that Maria is dead because of her hatred for them. But when Balthasar tells Romeo that Juliet is dead, he does it without knowing that it isn’t true. The last major difference between the two works is the death of the heroine. Juliet kills herself because she knows that her Romeo is dead and she cannot live without him. However, Maria is left alive at the end of West Side Story. It is almost as though she does not die so that she can accuse society of its prejudicial attitude against the Puerto Ricans and reveal everyone’s role in her and Tony’s love story.
There are many similarities and differences between the characters Romeo from Romeo and Juliet, and Tony from West Side story. They both were lovers and fell in love with a forbidden enemy from another family or gang. Romeo was forbidden to love Juliet because she was a Capulet and he was a Montague. Tony was from a rival gang, the Jets, while Maria's brother was the leader of the Sharks. Another similarity between the two characters were that they both killed a family member of the woman they love. Romeo kills Tybalta; Juliet's cousin, while Tony kills Maria's brother Bernardo. A final similarity between the two characters is that they both die. Romeo thinks Juliet has died, so he kills himself by drinking poison. Tony also dies, when he
West Side Story, a film directed by Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise, is a relatively modern adaptation of William Shakespeare 's Romeo and Juliet. As both, the film and text, explore the perceptions of deep-rooted feud between two parties, it also includes the influence and pressure it has on young love. Although numerous similarities are encountered throughout the play and movie, there are distinguished concepts obtaining great difference. However, the two mediums of this tragic love story have three prominent issues of story, themes and characters instilling both similar and dissimilar concepts.
In both of these plays the main male character kills a relative of their lover. In Romeo And Juliet, Romeo kills Tybalta, Juliet's cousin. In West Side Story, Toni kills Bernardo, Maria's brother. There was a person in both play's that tried to make peace.
Unlike Romeo and Juliet, Tony and Maria were not "star-crossed" lovers whose destiny was determined by fate, but rather victims of the intolerance, misunderstanding, and mistrust that seem to be ever-present in human society (Gravely 1). The relationships between the characters, plot sequence, and theme of hatred in West Side Story and Romeo and Juliet intertwine resulting in two parallel yet slightly differing representations of the most famous love story of all time. Shakespeare presents an entertaining, witty and sometimes sexually provocative portrayal of Arthur Brooke’s tale. Robbins’ presentation of the celebrated classic paints the awful truths of racism and irrational violence through dance, song, and music. Romeo and Juliet’s blind love is the force that unites two enemies, just as the eternal human spirit brings all people of the Earth united as one.
One main difference is that in Romeo and Juliet the sililoquy is spoken while in
Plot: The plots are very much the same but are slightly altered to fit the time period that they were set in. One example of this is the names of Romeo and Juliet vs the other two plays. Juliet, Maria, and Thisbe one could see that the characters were from different periods. The Hispanic name Maria symbolizes the great influx of Puerto Rican immigrants into NYC. Romeo and Juliet and Pyramus and Thisbe are more closely related, because of the conflict between these two plays is between the two true families. Whereas in West Side Story the two main lovers Tony and Maria there only known families are their gang families.
The archetypal tragedy of two star-crossed lovers, separated by familial hate, is a recurring theme, which never fails to capture the minds of the audience. It is only at great cost, through the death of the central characters that these feuding families finally find peace. This is an intriguing idea, one antithetical. I have chosen to analyze both Shakespeare 's Romeo and Juliet and Laurent 's West Side Story. The purpose of this essay is showing how the spoken language is utilized in these different plays to meet differing objectives. The chosen scenes to further aid comparison and contrast are the balcony scenes.
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. In both Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story, prejudices are so strong between two distinct groups of people that the hatred is passed from generation to generation, always against the same rival group.
To say a couple is star-crossed means that their relationship will not last and is cursed to not work out. However, this couple may have intense feelings for each other, but not be destined to be together. It is called star cross because people who believe in astrology think the stars control human feelings. That is of course an opinion and why Shakespeare wrote that Romeo and Juliet were star-crossed lovers.
Was this whole musical just a rip off of Romeo and Juliet? After seeing West Side Story and reading Romeo and Juliet one could easy see how similar the two are. However you also notice subtle to big differences within the plot, especially the ending. West Side Story is viewed as a copy of Romeo and Juliet, even though it is a musical whereas Romeo and Juliet is a playwright. However these stories do have almost the same basic plot. There are many similarities and differences between West Side Story and Romeo and Juliet.
Romeo and Juliet is a romantic love story about a young lad named Romeo who has fallen in love with Lady Juliet, but is unable to marry her because of a long-lasting family feud. The play ends in the death of both these characters and the reunion of the friendship between the families. Romeo is in love with Juliet, and this is a true, passionate love (unlike the love Paris has for her or the love Romeo had for Rosaline) that nothing can overcome, not even the hatred between their two families that is the reason for the death of their two children. Throughout the play, Shakespeare thoroughly explores the themes of both true love and false love and hatred. Without either of these themes, the play would loose its romantic touch and probably would not be as famous as it is today.
The only difference between the love between Romeo and Juliet and other scenarios such as West Side Story, and Splendor in the Grass, is that these social situations make the story interesting, therefore, a wonderful love story. In the story, West Side Story, there is a huge social disagreement between two New York City gangs, the Jets and the Sharks. The Jets are primarily a white territorial gang that has been sworn to defend there street from a Puerto Rican gang, the Sharks. This social difference had made these two groups sworn enemies of each and there fore there, it was known that there was to be no interaction between the gangs unless it was expressed in hostility. At a dance on night that both of the racial groups were attending, Tony, a Jets veteran, had his eye caught by a young girl, Maria, who happened to be the younger sister of the Sharks leader, Benardo.