Comparing Romeo And Juliet And The Notebook

“It is sad but so many tragedies can be avoided, if we extend a little bit of love to one another,” (Lailah Gifty Akita). In retrospect, many people can relate to this quote. Perhaps one can relate to this on a personal level. There are similarities and differences between Romeo and Juliet and The Notebook.

The author of these two books, Nicholas Sparks and William Shakespeare, have comparable themes such as, young love, impulsive actions and tragedy. Young love is something that you could call a classic theme. Many people use this in books, movies, it can even be incorporated into songs. Impulsive actions can tie in with young love,

I am sure almost everyone has heard of a story or seen some sort of movie dealing with the theme being young love. Romeo and Juliet deals a lot with that. The whole story is based on young love between Romeo and his love Juliet. But Romeo and Juliet is not the only story dealing with the theme of young love, The Notebook connects with the same theme as well. If you know the story of The Notebook

you can comprehend the theme from the beginning. You can see the deep affection that Allison and Noah have for each other. Furthermore you can see the affection between Romeo and Juliet as well. The lovers always wanted to be together, wanting to spend every minute with one another. Young love can cause many different thoughts for many people. For instance, Allison and Noah would keep each other company from early dawn till late night fall, never wanting to leave each other’s side. Along with Romeo and Juliet, even though they were not allowed to be together they would still sneak out so they could be near one another. Young love changed the way that the couples acted and it changed their behavior.

Addition to that coming from young love can lead to acting on impulse. Acting on impulse is something that Romeo, Juliet, Noah and Allison all dealt with in there short but sweet love story. Allison and Noah in The Notebook were different but yet the same. Allison was a higher class then Noah and when they would come back from late night rendezvous her parents often would not be happy. They wanted her to be with someone with more money and someone who was “more her type.” Dealing with Romeo and Juliet’s love story came with two feuding families. The couples being together was impossible because of all the hate between their relatives. That caused them to have to make all of their choices and spend all of their time together a secret. They always made their choices with acting on impulse, thinking about marriage, later on when they could not be together they both wanted to kill themselves because they could not stand the thought of not being together. Though at the time for the companions it seemed like a good idea, they would be able to be together in peace. Acting on impulse was sitting on their shoulders at this point, causing them to let the consequences slip past their minds. I believe that them(the two?) thinking about what the problems they caused did to others would have changed the ending of this story between the star crossed lovers.

Lastly is the theme of tragedy.

Now I am almost sure everyone knows about one story dealing with some sort of tragedy. Romeo and Juliet’s story was flawed with many tragedies that would slowly break down the story until it reached the biggest tragedy at the end of their love story. Starting with them not being able to be together, then leading to them having to have a secret marriage, soon to Juliet going to be forced to marry Paris, and lastly both of the lovers killing themselves so they could finally be together.

Noah and Allison’s story in The Notebook had tragedy as well. Allison’s parents wouldn’t allow her to be with Noah so they had to sneak around to be together, then later on they got separated and Allison found another man. She got engaged and she ended up finding Noah again, they got back together and got married later, when they were older Allison was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and lost her memory to everything in her

past.

“It is sad but so many tragedies can be avoided, if we extend a little bit of love to one another,” (Lailah Gifty Akita). The tragedy, impulse, and tragedy all come with a great love story.