West Side Story Similarities Between Romeo And Juliet

Oh woe to these two lovers who lost their lovers to an ancient hate. The two stories are called Romeo and Juliet, and West Side Story. Both stories show how love and hate can lead to death in the most tragic sense. Romeo and Juliet were written by William Shakespeare while West Side Story was written by Tony Kushner. Shakespeare’s play takes place in Verona, Paris showing a feud between two wealthy families whose heirs, Romeo and Juliet, have fallen madly in love with each other causing the death of Romeo and Juliet. Kushner’s play has a similar plot, but it takes place in Manhattan, New York and instead of a family feud the story shows a fight between two gangs called the Jets and the Sharks. One important member of each gang falls in love,

To name a few between Romeo and Tony, they are both important people to their respective families, they are both considered good people, and both fall madly in love with their chosen lovers. The difference with Romeo is his wealthy family, Romeo purposefully killed himself, Romeo left his city, and Romeo and Juliet formally married in Friar Lawrence's cell. Tony did not willingly kill himself, Tony and Maria did not formally marry themselves, Tony came from bad family conditions, and Tony just recently came out of jail. Now the differences between Maria and Juliet are not that noticeable, but they are there. Maria is different because she is not original from the place the story is from, Maria is not wealthy, Maria did not kill herself when she saw Tony die, Maria planned to leave with Tony. Juliet is different because she comes from a wealthy family, had an official marriage, faked her death, and married Romeo the day

This theme is represented in West Side Story because of the end scene when Tony is killed. Tony’s death causes Maria to experience an extreme amount of loss, making her nearly kill herself and everyone that was involved in Tony’s death. Loss is also shown in Romeo and Juliet through the death of Mercutio. Mercutio’s death makes Romeo kill Tybalt in cold blood, causing Romeo to be banished, leading to when Juliet is faking her death making Romeo actually believing she is dead causing him to kill himself. The theme of loss is timeless because without loss there is no growth, and loss will always happen because nothing stays the same