Comparing Hate In Romeo And Juliet And The Help By Kathryn Stockett

In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Romeo and Juliet’s disputing families forbid their true love causing sadness and anger, which leads to the tragic death of the star-crossed lovers. Hate prominently reveals itself in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Both families are unaware of what they are fighting about, all they know is that they hate each other. The Help by Kathryn Stockett, is staged in the 1940s when racism is very prevalent. White people were fighting with Black people in America and it was normalized because it had been happening for generations. This is seen as okay and nobody questions it because it is all they know. Both The Help and Romeo and Juliet are similar because both stories include deep-rooted hatred for another

Romeo and Juliet demonstrates how hate can destroy a family and the people involved. Hate is demonstrated while each family is fighting either physically or emotionally. In the 1500s if someone wanted to fight, they could challenge their opponent to a duel. In this scene, two characters are fighting and this causes Lord Capulet to be awakened. He comes out and angrily shouts, “Thou villain Capulet! Hold me not. Let me go” (1.1.77). Tybalt is fighting Benvolio because he is easily angered. Their fight was making such a loud noise that both Lord Capulet and Lord Montague came out angry. Their anger was so intense that they wanted to fight one another. The Prince comes out shortly after and tells everyone to stop fighting. When both Lord Capulet and Lord Montague came out, they did not know what they were fighting about. They just immediately grabbed their swords to duel, only being held back by their wives. The reason for their fighting is the deep-rooted hatred between the two families. In Kathryn Stockett’s The Help, she demonstrates how hatred affects

Tybalt stabs Mercutio and he ends up dying. Romeo is trying to make peace with Tybalt but Tybalt will not listen. Romeo kills Tybalt, and Mercutio says to him “Romeo, away, be gone! The citizens are up, and Tybalt slain. Stand not amazed. The prince will doom thee death if thou art taken. Hence, be gone, away!” (3.1.134). Romeo killed Tybalt and Mercutio is telling him to leave before the prince comes, or else he will be put to death. Romeo tells Mercutio that he would rather die than leave Juliet. It is acceptable to fight with swords because it was a different time, and people’s standards were a lot lower. Fights where people were physically hurt, had a more severe punishment. It would be different in the novel The Help. In this instance, a white man is beating up a black man because he made a mistake. He accidentally used the wrong bathroom which was a big deal in the 1940s. The main character, Aibleen, is shocked to hear her friend say, “He use the white bathroom at Pinchman Lawn and Garden. Say there wasn’t a sign up sayin so. Two white mens chased him and beat him with a tire iron’” (Stocket 117). A black man used the white bathroom and that was heavily looked down upon back in the 1940s. It was viewed as okay to hate someone based on their skin color because the majority of white people agreed that black people were different from them. If a white man had injured a black man, he