Comparing Happiness In Romeo And Juliet And West Side Story

Everyone is different. Some people are black. Some people are white. Some people believe that true happiness is how many possessions one has. Juliet and Maria are a prime example of exactly how different two people can be. Throughout Romeo and Juliet, Juliet has a life that is planned and set out for her and is more controlled than the life of Maria who is a young girl recently immigrated from Puerto Rico. During West Side Story, Maria has a life of more freedom, even if only small amount, and grows copiously more than Juliet in the way that she tends to express deeper emotions than Juliet as she lives throughout the story, and Juliet remains petty and shallow. The final question is how to relate these to one another, one possible route

The first reason that Maria is different and a better person than Juliet is that Maria and Juliet had the same circumstances, but Juliet kills herself but Maria moves on. Actions are everything. Because as the old saying goes, “Actions speak louder than words”. Juliet’s actions show her to be a young petty girl, who believes a boy is her guide to happiness, which is never the case, because only God gives true happiness. Comparatively, for Maria, when Tony dies she mends the riff between the Sharks and Jets, showing her maturity and strength compared to the weak Juliet. When it truly comes down to it, situations don’t change people, people change

During both of the stories Juliet and Maria have the same tragic life but only Maria is able to grow and become a better person from this. Unsurprisingly, this is proved by this quote from Romeo and Juliet, (Shakespeare p.222 line 174-175) “Yea, noise? Then I’ll be brief. O, happy dagger. This is thy sheath. There rust, and let me die.”. This quote shows Juliet is someone that believes she needs a man to be happy, and not someone who grows from tragedy, because after a few seconds of seeing her beloved Romeo dead she kills herself. These are not the actions of a wise person. On the other hand, Maria sees her love die, and is able to mend the break between the two “families”, which shows her to be much more level-headed and wise than the insolent Juliet. Only the wise can better themselves and become more mature through sadness, and Maria has proven this to be true, and Juliet has