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Comparing Romeo And Juliet And Barsocchini's High School Musical

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Parallelism can be found between Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Barsocchini’s High School Musical. Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet revolves around two teens, Romeo and Juliet, who try and defy the long feud between their families: the Montagues and Capulets. Their secret love leads to their tragic ending in death, so they can be together for eternity. On the other hand, Barsocchini’s High School Musical revolves around two teen, Troy and Gabriella, who come from two opposite worlds: the jocks and the geeks. Their love escalates quickly, and they must break free from the status quo. Many parallels present themselves between Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and Barsocchini’s High School Musical, including fate and love; they can be found …show more content…

As Ruth Nevo states, “The plot of Romeo and Juliet stresses the accidental” (241). Their meeting emphasizes the role of fate in the book, which can be viewed in several other pieces of literature, and often inspires works such as High School Musical. The similarities between the two pieces start from the beginning, where the two teens meet: at a party. As Robert Smith put it, “In harmony with the prologue which tells us that Romeo and Juliet are to be revealed as ‘a pair of star-crossed lovers,’ we observe them repeatedly crying out against the accidents of Fortune.” (72) Fate begins by bringing Romeo and Benvolio the chance to go to a Capulet party when Peter asks them to translate the invitation and invites them to the party if they “be not of the house of Montagues.” However, Romeo and Benvolio, being Montagues, still go to the masked party in order for Romeo to speak to Rosaline. But at the party, Romeo gains sight of Juliet and falls in love with her almost immediately and forgets about Rosaline, chiming, “Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight! For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.” (1.5.51-52) At the party, Juliet also meets Paris, the man who wants to marry her, and tries to woo her and win her over because her father, Capulet, declares her too young to wed. Paris’ attempts fail, as Juliet already laid eyes on Romeo and realizes their …show more content…

Both teens then sing karaoke together on a stage at the party, at which point they sing a song entitled “The Start of Something New.” In this opening scene, they sing about how “anything can happen when you take a chance.” As a movie inspired by Romeo and Juliet, it tells the story of two teens and their fate. Later in “The Start of Something New” they sing the lyrics, “Who’d of ever thought that we’d both be here tonight?” touching on their fate of being in the same place, just like Romeo and Juliet when they happened to see each other and fall in love at Capulet’s party. This song acknowledges their fate of being together, similarly to how Romeo and Juliet viewed

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