Comparing Hate In Romeo And Juliet And West Side Story

What is the difference between love and hate? Is there a difference at all? In the story of the tragic lovers Romeo and Juliet written by William Shakespeare, and in West Side Story written by Tony Kuchneir, they portray this great controversy of Love Vs Hate. In the story of Romeo and Juliet the setting is the city of Verona, Italy during the thirteenth or fourteenth century. In West Side Story it is in the city of New York. These two stories have a common theme,plot,and characters. An example is the tragic love between both Romeo and Juliet and the tragic love of Tony and Maria. The hate between two families in Romeo and Juliet, the Capulets vs Montigues is the same, as the hate in West Side Story between The Sharks and The Jets. Although the settings of these tragic love stories are vastly different, the parallel characters and plot elements of both stories help to develop the theme that love is difficult especially when hate is in the relationship first.

The main characters are Tony and Romeo , Juliet and Maria. Tony and Romeo are similar, for example, in Romeo and Juliet Romeo loves another girl who is in the opposite family of Romeo’s and their families are in a feud so in their family’s eyes they can not be together. In West Side Story Tony falls in love with a girl who is in the opposite gang to which Tony’s gang is in a fight/feud with. Another example with these two character similarities are that the both of them sneak to the balcony of his lover in order to keep their love a secret. The young ladies , Juliet and Maria are both in love with their family/gang opponents. In each young girl's time this betrayal was unforgiven. Another example is that they both have mothers that disagree with the person that they are deeply in love with. This causes a really bad problem and ends up going too far. Both stories have similarities between them as examples given