Romeo And Juliet Play Vs Movie Essay

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Romeo and Juliet: Play vs. Movie Romeo and Juliet the movie and the play have a lot of similarities, but there are some key differences. For example, Romeo and Juliet the play is set in the 1400’s, while the movie is set in 1996. This caused a lot of time period adjustments to be made, which adds an interest that wouldn’t be there if the movie was also set in the 15th century. The story is the same, but instead of horses and swords, there are cars and guns. The Montagues and Capulets are company owners and mafia empires instead of noble houses. The Prince is a policeman, and the Friar has a large tattoo of a cross on his back. Mercutio still doesn’t take anything seriously, but now he has taken up cross-dressing to go to a masquerade …show more content…

For one, Juliet is heavily associated with angels. There are angel figurines and dolls in her room, angel stickers on her door, and she even dresses up as an angel for the party. Angels symbolize love and purity, as well as the divine and heaven. Juliet loves Romeo, and her love is pure. Even though they have only known each other for a night, Juliet marries Romeo and is loyal to him. She could have just gone along with marrying Paris because her marriage with Romeo was bound to end badly, but she didn’t. As for the part about the divine and heaven, that foreshadows Juliet’s looming death. Another symbol that appears throughout the movie are crosses. The cross symbolizes Jesus’s sacrificial death in love. Romeo and Juliet sacrifice their lives for love for the other, because they can’t bear living without the other. It’s not quite the same thing, but there definitely is a connection. Finally, there are the literal signs. There is a sign that says, “Add more fuel to your fire” at the gas station before the fight takes place and the station literally catches on fire. That symbolizes the reemerging of the feud. Another sign says “Wherefore L’amour,” which means “Why love?” A third sign says “Haste” at the part where Romeo is going to the Capulet tomb and the Friar is trying to contact him before he does something rash. All these symbols add texture and interest to the movie that the viewer can’t get by reading or watching the original