Contrast Essay: Romeo and Juliet

And he will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be

Romeo and Juliet, written by William Shakespeare, is a tragic love story about two young lovers who are forced to be estranged as a result of their feuding families. The play is about their struggle to contravene fate and create a future together. As such, it was only a matter of time before Hollywood would try and emulate Shakespeare’s masterpiece. This had been done before in many films. Prominent among them were, Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 “Romeo and Juliet” and Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 “William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet.” Both films stay true to the themes of Shakespeare’s original play. However, the modernised Luhrmann film not only maintains the essence of Shakespeare’s writings, Luhrmann makes it relevant to a teenage audience. This is

Romeo and Juliet deceive others due to the poor guidance they receive about their situation. They resort to deceit as a resolution for their desperate situations. Friar Laurence performs their secret marriage as he believes that this alliance could ‘…Turn [their] household’s rancour to pure love’. Juliet is later forced to marry Paris and asks the Nurse for assistance. The Nurse replies that Juliet is ‘…better in this second match’. The Nurse helped Juliet to marry Romeo but as the situation becomes tricky, she betrays Juliet and encourages her to marry Paris; she provides poor guidance in doing so. This poor advice convinces Juliet to consider a plan involving a ‘desperate… execution’. This desperate execution is provided to Juliet by Friar Laurence who provides Juliet with a potion that puts her in a sleep like death. The Friar

The play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare is about the dilemma of choosing love over loyalty for your family. In the story Romeo and Juliet come from separate families who hate each other, but still find love in each other. They get married without telling their families and eventually the two families get into a fight which ends in Romeo getting banished from the city where Juliet lives. They have a plan for him to get back into to the city to prevent Juliet from being forced to marry another man, but it fails and ends with the suicide death of both Juliet and Romeo. Shakespeare's major theme in the text is that Love plays a major role in our lives and can heavily affect our decisions.

Act III, scene i of Romeo & Juliet is the climax of the story, in which two fights are portrayed, one between Mercutio and Tybalt, and one between Romeo and Tybalt, which lead to the deaths of both Mercutio and Tybalt. When portrayed in film form in Zeffirelli’s 1968 version, and Luhrmann’s 1996 version, there are many differences, and similarities. While these two films are telling the same story, it is the differences between the two that lead to Luhrmann’s 1996 version being superior. Due to its more dramatic settings, and character interactions and actor portrayals.

Firstly let us consider conflict. In each act of the play, we see the overpowering desire to belong leading to a climax of conflict

also better because its differences to the play made it a little bit more enjoyable.

In Act 2 Scene 6 of Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare uses the characterization of Romeo and the conflict of their secret marriage to emphasize the overall message that love and fate are interchangeable.

Juliet about anything that was going on and did not ever ask her what she wanted. He should

7. One theme of the play is that "things are not as they seem". What action takes place that night that is also not as it seems?

him in a very similar shot to one in which we see Juliet from during

Nurse tells Juliet to marry Paris and try to forget Romeo, since he is probably

Some differences in the time period that I noticed were the members of the Capulet and Montague families had arranged marriages. An arranged marriage means the parents tell their children who they want to marry. After their parents tell them who they think their child should marry, the marriage ceremony will be arranged. I think that Shakespeare put arranged marriages into the play because he is trying to show us what happen in the 15th century. In the play, they actually experience it. In the movie, they are showing that they are doing a news article about the marriage. Also, I was expecting to see a little bit more of an older movie scene. The movie has a ton of differences, but they are good differences.

in the scene which is over a minute and a half. This in itself is significant because it forces the

To begin with, in this play the author unfolds family conflicts that involve its characters into a series of events that affected their lives and pushed them to unexpected ways.