Reader Response Criticism to Romeo and Juliet

Connor Gallagher
Mr. Dalton
English Honors Freshmen
12 February 2013
The Romeo and Juliet Story Romeo and Juliet is a play created by Shakespeare a very long time ago, but this play has been adopted into many other movies, plays, songs, and even phrases. In class we watched Romeo and Juliet, West side story, and Princess Bride. These are all renditions of the original and are unique in their own way, West Side Story is a musical, Princess Bride is a medieval story, and Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy. These are all in different time periods but have basically the same plot, boy and girl love each other and there is a major challenge standing between their love but it all ends badly. All of these stories are about love, which is a strong human emotion so many people have experienced it very differently. Personally I have never been I love with anyone so the feelings in these movies are not as important to me. However if someone was deeply in love sometime in their life it would make more sense. For instance when in West Side Story Maria and Tony were taking a very long time saying goodbye, approximately five minutes which was a bit drug out; Mr. Dalton said, “When you’re in love you’ll understand how hard it is to say goodbye.” In Romeo and Juliet the same scene, which was the original balcony scene, occurred and they spent about the same time saying goodbye. Also in Princess Bride when Westly and Buttercup were saying goodbye it was the same feeling but I didn’t understand any of it as well. In Romeo and Juliet there are always two opposing sides, which absolutely hate each other for various reasons. In Romeo and Juliet the two opposing families are the Capulets and the Montagues. There is also the Sharks and the Jets in West Side and Gilder and Florence in Princess Bride. They each have the same feel to each group. The groups are presented by red and blue. The red group is always more aggressive than the other and usually starts the fights. There are key people in each story that represent a certain person from the original. First are the leaders of the groups and their wife or girlfriend, then is the lovers, someone who hates the other group the most, the servant or best man of the lovers, someone else who wants the girl, and the middle man between the lovers who knows all the secrets. In all of these stories I preferred the Montagues side rather than the Capulets for many reasons. First off I am a peaceful person who doesn’t like conflict or contention, who will stay away from you if we don’t like each other. This fits the Montagues perfectly. In all of the examples of movies the Sharks, Montagues, and Gilder were always provoked first. In real life the Capulets are like the cocky football players looking for a fight while the Montagues are like the nice nerds who mind their own business even thought they don’t like the jocks. In fact in each of the groups there is a specific person that represents the group. Tybalt is a Capulet and hates all of the Montagues he’s always looking for a way to fight. Benvolio on the Montagues side on the other hand is always trying to keep the peace and turns the other cheek when hit. As an example in Princess Bride Florence tries to start a war by planting false evidence that Gilder killed the Prince’s Fiancé so they can start the war. And in West Side Story when the Jets arranged for a war council so they could have a fight with the Sharks to see who claims control of the area. For these reasons I did not like the Capulets and tended to understand the Montagues more than other people might. The relationship of Romeo and Juliet is very interesting. They are both the very adored only children of two opposing families who are supposed to hate each other and yet they are madly in love. But for me honestly, it just seemed silly to have a 12-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy being truly in love. I did understand how that was normal because of how long they lived, but still I couldn’t get it out of my head. That definitely had an impact on what I thought about the story, every time they started making out or after they had consummated I just laughed because it was so odd. (Also because the attack scenes were so bad.) It did make sense to me in The Princess Bride and West Side Story since they were older and in love so I understood it a little better. While west side story is very similar to Romeo and Juliet, princess bride is different, it has the same roles of characters and such but the plot is much different. For instance Wesley loved buttercup for a long time and they eventually fell in love rather than love at first sight. One of the other differences is that in West Side Story the fighting is dancing rather than duels or battles. Also the ending is good in princess bride rather than in Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story. An important part of Romeo and Juliet that is often over looked is the marriage. Everyone always talks about how they fall in love and die but no one really knows how it happened. In Romeo and Juliet the reason they are married is not only because they love each other, but it is also a way to try and stop the feud between the families. At the beginning the prince, or the cops in West Side Story tell the opposite sides that the next person to start a fight is going to be in really big trouble. And so when the friar finds out that the two only children of the quarreling families want to get married he thinks this will fix it. When I heard this I automatically thought that it wouldn’t go well. The reason for this? For me I have had a huge impression from media and personal experiences or friends that marriages never work for too long. And once the true love wore off they would resort back to their set in stone ways. It also did not help that they were so young and I could not see how they could be married being so young. Anyway after they get married Tybalt finds Romeo and wants to fight but he refuses so Tybalt kills Mercutio or Riff in West Side Story. Then Romeo kills Tybalt out of revenge and it just goes downhill. In the end Juliet fakes her death to avoid marriage to another, similar to Princess Bride but Romeo finds her dead. The endings to all three stories are, Romeo and Juliet they both kill themselves thinking the other is dead, West Side Story Tony dies and Maria dies inside, Princess Bride everyone lives happily ever after. The thing about all of the bad things that happened in the stories is that it was all because of accidents. Tybalt did not mean to kill Mercutio and Tony did not mean to kill the Puerto Rican but because of no time to explain only bad things happened. This definitely had an impact on the stories for me. Many times in my life only because of misunderstandings or people not listening to me trying to explain bad things happen so because of that the grief was felt more for me. In conclusion I liked the Montagues more than the Capulets, and I thought it was silly that Romeo and Juliet got married so young.