Romeo And Juliet And West Side Story Analysis

William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Arthur Laurent’s West Side Story were both tragic, romantic, works. West Side Story was a close variation of the play Romeo and Juliet, but the author of West Side Story changed characteristics of Tony to differ from his Romeo and Juliet equivalent, Romeo. Tony became more of an introverted, optimistic, and innocent character. On the other hand, Romeo was outgoing, seemingly bipolar, and violent. These changes in character between Tony and Romeo altered the themes from societal expectations, fate over free will, and complicated families to societal expectations in the 1950’s, inevitability of fate, and gang rivalry due to racism. First of all, Shakespeare depicted Romeo as a bit of a lover, whereas Tony was more of a loner. This change affected a theme of West Side Story because societal expectations vary based on time period, which allowed for Tony to act differently than Romeo. Shakespeare set Romeo

Tony became more level-headed than Romeo and usually thought his decisions through better. This shift in character portrayal changed the way the theme of fate vs. free will showed and affected each character. Romeo could be one minute happy and in love, the next he could be miserable with life. His ever-changing emotions clouded his actions and he made a lot of bad choices at his own free will that led to consequences. An example of this from the play is when Romeo found out he was banished and he acted ungrateful, despite the fact he could have avoided the fight had it not been for his hate induced revenge, “There is no world without Verona walls, But purgatory, torture, hell itself. Hence banished is banished from the world, And world’s exile is death. Then banished Is death mis-termed. Calling death banished, Thou cut’st my head off with a golden axe, And smilest upon the stroke that murders me” (3.3.17-23). In West Side Story Tony was shown as optimistic