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Differences In Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet

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Why do students around the world still study Shakespeare in high school more than 400 years after his death? How do thee, thy, thou relate to 21st century teenagers in the here and right now? Well, the tragedy Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare is a perfect example of why we continue to study Shakespeare’s work. While the story may be written in a language that’s foreign to contemporary audiences, the story itself doesn 't age. In fact, upon initial observation, one would probably not place a real-life 21st century lynching and the play Romeo and Juliet into the same category; however, the two stories share striking similarities.

To begin, Romeo and Juliet are star-crossed lovers; the children of two feuding families of equal status…show more content…
Interestingly, while in most love stories the handsome, strong males save the princess, the female protagonists in these two stories appeared stronger than their male counterparts. When faced with difficult situations the women stood their ground and looked for a way out. On the other hand, the men saw no hope in the predicament and gave up. Also, have you heard about that ever so strong mother and son bond? It can be found in both tragic stories. In Romeo and Juliet Lady Montague pleads for mercy to be placed upon Romeo. Similarly, Vishal’s mother did not want to punish or harm her son, but in the end she did not end up getting her…show more content…
Although the stories are different, they both share several of the same main ideas. For instance, both Romeo and Juliet and the teen couple article talk of prejudice. Shakespeare purposely made a strong century long feud between Capulets and Montagues to driven a stake between the two families in the story. Boundaries were drawn between the caste levels preventing them from commixing. The same baselines of love, hate, and death all prevail throughout certain parts of the stories. Including these elements into his writing Shakespeare pulled at the sympathy and grief of his audience. However, sadly, the occurrence of love, hate, and death in Sonu and Vishal’s story did not cause as much sympathy and grief even though the stories are equally tragic.

In the end, while the two stories are vastly different, the similarities between the two have crossed generations and geographical boundaries. If prejudice continue to appear throughout history, sadly many more tragic events like in Romeo and Juliet and the teen couple article may occur. We should put aside our differences and learn to accept everyone. History will continue to repeat itself decade after decade and even throughout centuries, in order to stop the repetition we need to learn from our mistakes from the past in order to progress in the
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