Romeo And Juliet Family Analysis

Realistic fiction has always been one of my favorite genres of literature. It’s relatable, but can also be complex and layered with different themes and ideas that we may not deal with in our everyday lives. Three of the books we recently read in class all fall into this category. They are all about teens, and their various escapades in love, adventure and danger. Another theme that connects all of these books would be the conventional family. Family is something that is built into our human nature; we as humans have always been in groups, whether it is groups of friends or a group of people related by blood. Having all of these different takes on what it means to be with your family is interesting, because all of these examples are connected,
yet they are still vastly different. The major way they are connected would definitely be the lack of parents or other guardians that might help prevent the tragedies in the books from occurring. If there had been parent involvement in any of the things that we read, there would have been a very different and less meaningful outcome. For the first example, a good place to start would be Romeo and Juliet, the timeless play by the poet Shakespeare, that deals with topics like suicide, and intense romantic relationships. The main source of conflict is between the two families in Verona. There is a major disconnect between Juliet and her parents, and between Romeo and his parents. In that time, it wasn’t proper for the children to talk to their parents about their feelings, or what was going on in their lives. Juliet only had her nurse to talk to, and nurse did help, but not in a way that helped Juliet stay alive. She continued the pattern of deceit by helping Juliet sneak around behind her parents backs. If the children had been more open with their parents instead of sneaking around of night than more people in that story would be alive at the end. If this had happened, however, the beautiful tragedy that Romeo and Juliet is know for wouldn’t have occurred, which leaves the play with less of an impact on the viewers. The reason why Romeo and Juliet is such a powerful and moving story is because they fell in love so quickly and deeply, and partly because they were willing to die for each other, but also because they learned these things on their own at such a young age. None of these things would come to be if the story had more parental involvement, therefore the it would be less meaningful. In The Outsiders we see many of the same things as in Romeo and Juliet.
The biggest contrast would be the lack of forbidden love, which is present in both Romeo and Juliet and in West Side Story. Instead, this focuses on the different social classes and the gangs present within each class. The main character Ponyboy is a greaser, and his both his parents were recently killed in a car crash. Now he is in the care of his older brother, and all three of the boys in the family participate in gang rumbles and occasional crime. There is now way to know if having the parents there would greatly affect that aspect of the story, mostly because of the time that the story takes place in gangs are a part of the culture. Two of the most important things that happened in the book were when one of the Socs was murdered by one of the greasers, and when two of the greasers died in the same night. The greaser, Johnny, who did murdered the Soc. had abusive parents who had no concern whatsoever for his well-being. That being said, if the parents had loved and properly cared for Johnny then neither of those things would have happened, because one depends on the other. Dallas Winston died because Johnny died. If everyone was still alive at the end, then the book would have less substance and it would lack the things that have kept it at the top of charts for so long. It is taught in schools almost everywhere, and it is an important representation of one of the social issues happening at the time
that this book was written. One other piece of media that relates the other two books, would be West Side Story. This play is very similar to The Outsiders. It also deals with gang on gang conflict, and it is also about forbidden love like in Romeo and Juliet. This is basically a combo of the first two examples. By being a combination of both Romeo and Juliet and The Outsiders it also has the same lack of parents or guardians. The one exception would be Doc, the bartender, who tries to convince the main character to stop with the gang fights. All of these kids have to deal with fighting on their own. All three of the examples explained earlier all share the same themes, and they all are very popular with teens. Most of the time young adults don’t feel fully understood by their parents or guardians, and this is reflected in literature by there being no parents or parents that are alive but that aren’t present in the child’s live. This leaves the children to find things our on their own, and this discovery is what makes all three of these works of fiction so important in our culture.