Romeo and Juliet versus West Side Story

Compare and Contrast of the Love Stories

Setting: Romeo and Juliet was set around 1954 which was Shakespeare's time period and was set in the city of Verona, Italy. Wheras West Side Story is set in the 1950's New York City where gangs were abundant. Pyramus and Thisbe was set in Ancient Greece.

Plot: The plots are very much the same but are slightly altered to fit the time period that they were set in. One example of this is the names of Romeo and Juliet vs the other two plays. Juliet, Maria, and Thisbe one could see that the characters were from different periods. The Hispanic name Maria symbolizes the great influx of Puerto Rican immigrants into NYC. Romeo and Juliet and Pyramus and Thisbe are more closely related, because of the conflict between these two plays is between the two true families. Whereas in West Side Story the two main lovers Tony and Maria there only known families are their gang families.

Main Male Characters: Tony, Romeo and Pyramus all die in the end. Tony dies at the hands of Bernardo. Romeo dies at the hands of Tybalt. And Pyramus is banished because he accidentally killed his wife. So in the end all the main male characters are in a sense, gone.

Main Female Characters: Maria, Juliet and Thisbe. Although not all of them die they do play a role in the storyline of the play. They all are in a relationship ship with their respective male characters. Maria shows a role in that she is the love interest of Tony. When Tony dies she is not so stricken to the point to where she wants to kill herself, although it does not show it in the play the reader would be safe to assume that she goes on with her life. Juliet on the other hand is so stricken that she kills herself over he fallen lovers body. In Pyramus and Thisbe, Pyramus accidentally killed Thisbe. Thisbe heard from an unreliable source that Pyramus was cheating on her. She went to were Pyramus lay and rustled the bushes. Pyramus thinking it was a wild animal shot into the bush killing his wife. My theory on why Maria can get over Tony and Juliet cannot get over Romeo was the fact that Juliet and Romeo were kept apart by family ties: Juliet a Capulet and Romeo a Montegue. Blood ties are what families are all about and they tend to be very strong.