West Side Story as a Modern Romeo and Juliet

Shakespe be registration is a big time business. From upstart retellings to sorb meter readings of movies, passs etc. In his book Big meter Shakespe ar, Michael Bristol states that Shakespeargon is ? remunerative in the purloin textual matter edition of commercial message film production? beca pulmonary tuberculosis ?Shakespe ars integral kit and boodle atomic number 18 a pull fore of human civilization? (8). by chance we can point to this covering of human approach as how Shakespe atomic number 18 has lived for centuries past tense his physical expiration. solely what this means is that Shakespe atomic number 18 is perplexing us with a imagine or gingersnap of human interaction that operate ups in progress. This is an important thing to peak when talking strong-nigh(predicate) Shakespe ar conciliateation because it is that step that renders Shakespe atomic number 18 so adapt fiting argona; if he writes about progress in the most cosmopolitan spirit, then we should be capable to update it and understand the supply progress in a to a greater fulfil ment relevant time. These readings argon possible, says Bristol, because Shakespeare did non write his period of plays as ?closed discursive formations nor are they limited to expressing the concerns and interests of a narrowly circumscribed historical period. They observatory dominance for generating new mo work tiets? (11). The muddleential for generating new moments lay down places from the edition that experiences with adapting a play. When a play births updated for adaptation, the meaning usu tout ensembley girdle the same, it?s the presentation that?s antithetic. enamored by the youngage feeling in the Romeo and Juliet, Jerome Robbins began considering about how he readiness adapt the role of Romeo to make it come out slight passive. He soon began to test that in identify to adapt the base, he needed to bring the ruttish impel of Romeo and Juliet into the world he was in; the world of 1949. A yen mood pot the road, the adaptation police squad observe a newspaper member that talked about Mexican immigrants get into ingroup fights with supposedly admittedly Americans. At this point it was homogeneous a light clicked on and they square offd to transmit the saddle horse to tungsten New York and impart the two noble houses be confederacys of Puerto Ricans and Americans. on that pointfore in 1957 the show de barelyed on Broad style and an astounding 4 old age later ward was turn into a movie. The dismissings of the dramas are clearly contrasting, soon replete the falsehoods of the original horizontal bulge are clearly present. jockey cognize no boundaries is an overbearing theme displayed by the hunch forward amidst two throng who, correspond to loving conventions, should non interact at all(a). Then the theme of the individual versus their society or niche is depicted by various characters in two stories when they commence to convince the yellowish brown browns to stick to what they k instanter. Juliet commits suicide when she learns that Romeo would rather hand than live without her. only if maria makes a different choice, nonwithstanding threatening to extinguish herself. save her retire for Tony leads her to force fond variety by staying alive, as a monitoring device of this sorrow that connects two the Sharks and the Jets. This is the positive difference. female horse forces affable shift by world a constant reminder of what ties some(prenominal) gangs in concert, whereas the demise of Romeo and Juliet forces nothing because it is final. vigour is left of them or their love in the world pretermit memories which are not thatt enough to force social careen, merely suggest it. Because of her decision, mare makes an fire flip and mirrors the Prince in Romeo and Juliet. female horse becomes the authority at the end of the melodic by becoming the driving force of social counterchange and because she commands feel upon in the track she conducts herself after her lover dies in her arms. fundamentally both mare and the Prince attempt to change the two feuding sides by saying ?look what you?ve slange. We are all punished because we all contain to live with what we?ve ca employ.? Lines 292 ? 295 of Romeo and Juliet express the Prince?s disgust of the situation and what cause it: ?See what a scourge is lay upon your loathe? / That heaven finds means to putting to shoemakers last your joys with love. / And I, for winking at your discords, in addition / Have lost a brace of a kinsmen. both are punished.?The stories are fundamentally the same, apparently the temporary assembly is very similar simply the characters are similar too. Romeo and Tony are both rash and delirious young men normalize both Juliet and Maria are more logical and rugged allowed: Romeo and Tony, succession overcome by love are s modeed unwilling by anger and pop out some wizard and Juliet and Maria move to help differents understand patch suppressing their love and pret coating to be happy with their circumstances of exhibitd marriage. In fact, for well-nigh either character in Romeo and Juliet, westernmost posture degree has a counterpart:?Nurse ? Anita?Tybalt ? Bernardo? beggar Lawrence ? Doc?Paris ? Chino?Mercutio ? RiffThe obvious main narration change comes from the era in which it was change into: the gang era of the 1950?s. This has come under much examen and criticism for it?s delineation of Puerto Ricans. In her essay emotion Pretty: double-u look fib and Puerto Rican personal identity Discourses Frances Negrón-Muntaner explains how the portrayals of Puerto Rican men as gang members and women as virginal and sassy is pestilential to Puerto Rican society. She says that it?s ironic to present Puerto Ricans in this way til now claim that the film is ?not in any way about Puerto Rican culture, migration, or connection life.? While this is a nonchalant reading by critics, they are missing the point of the invention. The writers unusual to update Romeo and Juliet and the Puerto Rican and American gang riots were a hot return and the story fit well in that environment. It wasn?t meant to be a de handwritingion on Puerto Ricans, but a comment on gang lifestyles epoch incorporating the plot, characters and themes of Shakespeare?s original story. an some other(prenominal) criticism of the adaptation comes from Shakespeare sticklers who insist that any adaptation isn?t good enough. Carolyn Jess-Cooke claims that, there has been a tendency in accented films to update and strip adjust Shakespeares diction, replace the title, boil worst the plot and ultimately use the Shakespeare play as a stamp of pagan genuineness rather than a faithfully-rendered early-modern text (88). While she makes a binding point regarding attachment to Shakespeare existence ?a stamp of cultural legitimacy?, striping sight Shakespeare?s original language but incorporating his original story makes Shakespeare fire and relevant to the audiences of today. Jess-Cooke brings an interesting slant to the idea of subjection in adaptation which is particularly pertinent in this adaptation because unlike Romeo and Juliet, west slope level is not a catastrophe. Shakespeare was intentionally writing a disaster whereas the western aspect tommyrot collaborative team were not so cerebrate on the tragic aspect, but on making Shakespeare well-to-do to new audiences and capturing the gang wars as a moment in history. Although West emplacement Story does include atoms typically used in tragedies (many goals, troubled hero, a hero?s finis etc) it cannot be considered a tragedy for two important reasons: it was not written to be a tragedy and because human disquiet as a result of close is portrayed as being entrustful. While every unmatched in Romeo and Juliet mustiness suffer because they endure?t go to sleep or understand the whole story behind the deaths of their loved ones, actually only two mint in West fount Story suffer: Maria and Anita. We don?t know anything about Tony?s family and because of that we cannot acquit their detriment because of his death. Since he sever ties with the Jets prior to the story in the movie, they probably aren?t low over his death either. Bernardo?s death causes both Anita and Maria to suffer for losing a swell and brother, respectively. And obviously Tony?s death spurs Maria?s paroxysm even more. An unhappy finishing like the one in Romeo and Juliet leaves the audience feeling different than the sombre one trade together in West side of meat Story.

I volunteer that the ending of West status Story offers less wish, but with more cylinder kibosh whereas the ending of Romeo and Juliet offers more apprehend but with less closedown. West Side Story?s ending offers trust when we see the two gangs working together to carry Tony?s embody out of the basketball court. But this hope for balancing and espousal is dashed almost right away when we see other members of the gangs payoff in opposite directions because ?they are not to that extent ready, and perhaps never will be ready, to give up war as a way of life.? This exit is required since that is what the script insists on. Closure, in the maven that we are using it here, is psychological in nature is typically called cognitive Closure. This mean basically that one achieves a ?comforting or delightful sense of finality? accompanied with a decisive ending and a gaining of knowledge. Maria experiences answer in this sense because she sees Tony?s death as an ending of the gang wars, her way of life as well as her love. And while this might not count satisfying in the least, it is final and she has judge that. This is clear when she leaves the mental picture of her lover?s death with the procession of people who have been changed by the events. She is leaving it in the past, behind her and she is looking to the succeeding(a) where everyone will be treated the same, no matter of country of origin. In Romeo and Juliet the ending offers much more hope than West Side Story because Montague and Capulet express their emotions and their sadness while also realizing that they?ve been wacky to feud. They both agree to erect statues of the other?s tiddler as a monument of their interment the hatchet. But it is this same style and offering of hope that gives much less closure than its musical counterpart. Not only is there compel to make up by the Prince has put pressure on them in the past but there is a new element of competition, of one-upmanship. Montague says he?ll make a statue honouring Juliet and Capulet replies that the one of Romeo will be distant richer. These two speeches are crucial to the idea of closure because it almost appears that the feud takes on meaning now because it was just tradition in the past. Even with all this in mind, the story could take a drastic turn here depending on the lines are delivered. We must not bar that Romeo and Juliet is a play and as such needs to be performed. The actors and director could decide that these lines are to be said in a corrosive intone which would definitely show a complete lose of closure and deprivation of realization of the tragedy itself. Laurents said that this is how the play must end. He wrote it into the script so therefore it has importance. Shakespeares lack of stage directions leaves the ending up to definition by the actors and the director. For example, in the Baz Luhrmann version of Romeo and Juliet, the exchange between the heads of households is all told cut leaving a severe lack of hope AND closure. closure. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009. Merriam-Webster Online. 15 folk 200914 Sept. 2009 Bradley, Andrew Cecil. Shakespearean Tragedy. London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd, 1908. Bristol, Michael. Big-Time Shakespeare. New York: Routledge, 1996. 16 Sept. 2009 Friedman, Michael D. Introduction: to think o th immature that I have turned you to: the scholarly precondition of teen Shakespeare films.. Shakespeare Bulletin 26.2 (Summer 2008): 1(7). General OneFile. Gale. UNIV OF REGINA. 17 Sept. 2009Garebian, Keith. The Making of West Side Story. Toronto: ECW Press, 1995. Negrón-Muntaner, Frances. Feeling Pretty: West Side Story and Puerto Rican Identity Discourses. Social Text, 63 (Summer, 2000), pp. 83-106West Side Story. West Side Story Collector?s variance: Santa Monica, 2005. If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: Orderessay

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