Same Play As Romeo And Juliet example essay topic

Known as one of the most renowned writers of all time, Shakespeare told the universal truth. Emotions are not something that changes over any amount of time. Some emotions like love, hate, revenge, and envy, are key players in most of Shakespeare's plays. Romeo & Juliet was such a successful play that many other movies have imitated the plot such as the very successful "West Side Story". Even though 400 years has past and the world has changed drastically, the emotions and feelings in the play Romeo and Juliet have withstood the test of time.

Shakespeare's play and the two movies modeled after it (Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story) have many similarities and many differences, but one thing remains constant, the emotions each character will display. Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is a everlasting play that concentrates on many different emotions. West Side Story is essentially the same play as Romeo and Juliet and was revived in 1961. Like Romeo and Juliet, Tony and Maria are of opposite arch enemy "families", they fall in love which is forbidden. Maria is Puerto Rican and Tony is Irish.

In West Side Story they couldn't possibly get married but they do have a scorching love affair that they try to keep secret. The hate between the two groups (sharks and jets) was modernized as racism and not as many of the main characters die in West Side Story as they do in Romeo and Juliet. One of the major differences in the movies is that Maria doesn't kill herself like Juliet, she is left alone. Another major difference between the movies is that Romeo kills Paris who was going to marry Juliet then he kills himself when he thinks that Juliet is dead.

In West Side Story, Tony is killed by Chino (the equivalent of Paris). I believe that the ending to West Side Story is actually worse then the ending to Romeo and Juliet because Juliet kills herself after finding Romeo dead, therefore she doesn't have to go through life without her one true love, unlike Maria whom chooses to live the rest of her life alone knowing that the one she lived for is now gone. One of the main focuses in these movies is that two members of these opposite groups fall in love. Love is something that we can all relate to in one way or another and it will never change over time. As I stated before, in Romeo and Juliet both Romeo and Juliet have such passion for each other that they don't want to live in a world without their soul mate, what kind of world would that be?

In West Side Story, Tony and Maria talk of running away with each other and have such an immense love that they have enough faith and love to end the hatred and disgust between their families and friends... Everyone has felt hate at one time or another in their life. In Romeo and Juliet there was Mercurio and Ty balt and in West Side Story there was Bernardo (Maria's brother) and Riff (Tony's best friend). Because these characters could not see past their blind hatred many others were killed. The original play of Romeo and Juliet and the new movie are almost exactly alike when concerning the plot but the way the script was written was truly a surprise. When I heard that they were making a movie out of Romeo and Juliet, the play and furthermore Leonardo Dicaprio would star in it I was expecting the worst, but to my disappointment came satisfaction.

The movie was taken to scenery of recent times but, the dialogue was precisely from the actual play. One major difference in the movie and the play is that at the end of the original play the two families end their feud because of the death of their children but in the new movie it never reaches that level which leaves the viewer with a sad note, at least with the play something good came out of all this sadness and misfortune but in the movie it is only misfortune. Overall the main similarity between the two movies is the experience. You feel happiness and joy when our young loving couples first meet.

You feel concern when you find that they are from rival families. You feel hatred when things start to go wrong for our young men. You feel desperation when our ladies cry. And in the end you feel despair when you find that love truly does conquer all but unfortunately not in the way we all hoped it would.

I'm sure if it was our decision the rival families in Romeo and Juliet would have mended their wounds and come together to share the love that their children share. And in West Side Story we would definetly keep all the dancing and catchy songs but, they wouldn't be competitive, there would only be an acceptance among themselves. Then again these movies and the play wouldn't be classics if they weren't just the way they are. Therefore, I'll leave the endings up to the writers.