romeo and juliet compare and contrast essay

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A Modern Perspective: Romeo and Juliet

By Gail Kern Paster

Does Romeo and Juliet need an introduction? Of all Shakespeare’s plays, it has been the most continuously popular since its first performance in the mid-1590s. It would seem, then, the most direct of Shakespeare’s plays in its emotional impact. What could be easier to understand and what could be more moving than the story of two adolescents finding in their sudden love for each other a reason to defy their families’ mutual hatred by marrying secretly? The tragic outcome of their blameless love (their “misadventured piteous overthrows”) seems equally easy to understand: it results first from Tybalt’s hotheaded refusal to obey the Prince’s command and second from accidents of timing beyond any human ability to foresee or control. Simple in its story line, clear in its affirmation of the power of love over hate, Romeo and Juliet seems to provide both a timeless theme and universal appeal. Its immediacy stands in welcome contrast to the distance, even estrangement, evoked by other Shakespeare plays. No wonder it is often the first Shakespeare play taught in schools—on the grounds of its obvious relevance to the emotional and social concerns of young people.

Recent work by social historians on the history of private life in western European culture, however, offers a complicating perspective on the timelessness of Romeo and Juliet. At the core of the play’s evident accessibility is the importance and privilege modern Western culture grants to desire, regarding it as deeply expressive of individual identity and central to the personal fulfillment of women no less than men. But, as these historians have argued, such conceptions of desire reflect cultural changes in human consciousness—in ways of imagining and articulating the nature of desire. 1 In England until the late sixteenth century, individual identity had been imagined not so much as the result of autonomous, personal growth in consciousness but rather as a function of social station, an individual’s place in a network of social and kinship structures. Furthermore, traditional culture distinguished sharply between the nature of identity for men and women. A woman’s identity was conceived almost exclusively in relation to male authority and marital status. She was less an autonomous, desiring self than any male was; she was a daughter, wife, or widow expected to be chaste, silent, and, above all, obedient. It is a profound and necessary act of historical imagination, then, to recognize innovation in the moment when Juliet impatiently invokes the coming of night and the husband she has disobediently married: “Come, gentle night; come, loving black-browed night, / Give me my Romeo” ( 3.2.21 –23).

Recognizing that the nature of desire and identity is subject to historical change and cultural innovation can provide the basis for rereading Romeo and Juliet. Instead of an uncomplicated, if lyrically beautiful, contest between young love and “ancient grudge,” the play becomes a narrative that expresses an historical conflict between old forms of identity and new modes of desire, between authority and freedom, between parental will and romantic individualism. Furthermore, though the Chorus initially sets the lovers as a pair against the background of familial hatred, the reader attentive to social detail will be struck instead by Shakespeare’s care in distinguishing between the circumstances of male and female lovers: “she as much in love, her means much less / To meet her new belovèd anywhere” ( 2. Chorus. 11 –12, italics added). The story of “Juliet and her Romeo” may be a single narrative, but its clear internal division is drawn along the traditionally unequal lines of gender.

Because of such traditional notions of identity and gender, Elizabethan theatergoers might have recognized a paradox in the play’s lyrical celebration of the beauty of awakened sexual desire in the adolescent boy and girl. By causing us to identify with Romeo and Juliet’s desire for one another, the play affirms their love even while presenting it as a problem in social management. This is true not because Romeo and Juliet fall in love with forbidden or otherwise unavailable sexual partners; such is the usual state of affairs at the beginning of Shakespearean comedy, but those comedies end happily. Rather Romeo and Juliet’s love is a social problem, unresolvable except by their deaths, because they dare to marry secretly in an age when legal, consummated marriage was irreversible. Secret marriage is the narrative device by which Shakespeare brings into conflict the new privilege claimed by individual desire and the traditional authority granted fathers to arrange their daughters’ marriages. Secret marriage is the testing ground, in other words, of the new kind of importance being claimed by individual desire. Shakespeare’s representation of the narrative outcome of this desire as tragic—here, as later in the secret marriage that opens Othello —may suggest something of Elizabethan society’s anxiety about the social cost of romantic individualism.

The conflict between traditional authority and individual desire also provides the framework for Shakespeare’s presentation of the Capulet-Montague feud. The feud, like the lovers’ secret marriage, is another problem in social management, another form of socially problematic desire. We are never told what the families are fighting about or fighting for; in this sense the feud is both causeless and goal-less. The Chorus’s first words insist not on the differences between the two families but on their similarity: they are two households “both alike in dignity.” Later, after Prince Escalus has broken up the street brawl, they are “In penalty alike” ( 1.2.2 ). Ironically, then, they are not fighting over differences. Rather it is Shakespeare’s careful insistence on the lack of difference between Montague and Capulet that provides a key to understanding the underlying social dynamic of the feud. Just as desire brings Romeo and Juliet together as lovers, desire in another form brings the Montague and Capulet males out on the street as fighters. The feud perpetuates a close bond of rivalry between these men that even the Prince’s threat of punishment cannot sever: “Montague is bound as well as I,” Capulet tells Paris ( 1.2.1 ). Indeed, the feud seems necessary to the structure of male-male relations in Verona. Feuding reinforces male identity—loyalty to one’s male ancestors—at the same time that it clarifies the social structure: servants fight with servants, young noblemen with young noblemen, old men with old men. 2

That the feud constitutes a relation of desire between Montague and Capulet is clear from the opening, when the servants Gregory and Sampson use bawdy innuendo to draw a causal link between their virility and their eagerness to fight Montagues: “A dog of that house shall move me to stand,” i.e., to be sexually erect ( 1.1.12 ). The Montagues seem essential to Sampson’s masculinity since, by besting Montague men, he can lay claim to Montague women as symbols of conquest. (This, of course, would be a reductive way of describing what Romeo does in secretly marrying a Capulet daughter.) The feud not only establishes a structure of relations between men based on competition and sexual aggression, but it seems to involve a particularly debased attitude toward women. No matter how comic the wordplay of the Capulet servants may be, we should not forget that the sexual triangle they imagine is based on fantasized rape: “I will push Montague’s men from the wall and thrust his maids to the wall” ( 1.1.18 –19). Gregory and Sampson are not interested in the “heads” of the Montague maidens, which might imply awareness of them as individuals. They are interested only in their “maidenheads.” Their coarse view of woman as generic sexual object is reiterated in a wittier vein by Mercutio, who understands Romeo’s experience of awakened desire only as a question of the sexual availability of his mistress: “O Romeo, that she were, O, that she were / An open-arse, thou a pop’rin pear” ( 2.1.40 –41).

Feuding, then, is the form that male bonding takes in Verona, a bonding which seems linked to the derogation of woman. But Romeo, from the very opening of the play, is distanced both physically and emotionally from the feud, not appearing until the combatants and his parents are leaving the stage. His reaction to Benvolio’s news of the fight seems to indicate that he is aware of the mechanisms of desire that are present in the feud: “Here’s much to do with hate, but more with love” ( 1.1.180 ). But it also underscores his sense of alienation: “This love feel I, that feel no love in this” ( 187 ). He is alienated not only from the feud itself, one feels, but more importantly from the idea of sexuality that underlies it. Romeo subscribes to a different, indeed a competing view of woman—the idealizing view of the Petrarchan lover. In his melancholy, his desire for solitude, and his paradox-strewn language, Romeo identifies himself with the style of feeling and address that Renaissance culture named after the fourteenth-century Italian poet Francesco Petrarca or Petrarch, most famous for his sonnets to Laura. By identifying his beloved as perfect and perfectly chaste, the Petrarchan lover opposes the indiscriminate erotic appetite of a Gregory or Sampson. He uses the frustrating experience of intense, unfulfilled, and usually unrequited passion to refine his modes of feeling and to enlarge his experience of self.

It is not coincidental, then, that Shakespeare uses the language and self-involved behaviors of the Petrarchan lover to dramatize Romeo’s experience of love. For Romeo as for Petrarch, love is the formation of an individualistic identity at odds with other kinds of identity: “I have lost myself. I am not here. / This is not Romeo. He’s some other where” ( 1.1.205 –6). Petrarchan desire for solitude explains Romeo’s absence from the opening clash and his lack of interest in the activities of his gang of friends, whom he accompanies only reluctantly to the Capulet feast: “I’ll be a candle holder and look on” ( 1.4.38 ). His physical isolation from his parents—with whom he exchanges no words in the course of the play—further suggests his shift from traditional, clan identity to the romantic individualism prefigured by Petrarch.

Shakespeare’s comic irony is that such enlargement of self is itself a mark of conventionality, since Petrarchism in European literature was by the late sixteenth century very widespread. A more cutting irony is that the Petrarchan lover and his sensual opponent (Sampson or Gregory) have more in common than is first apparent. The Petrarchan lover, in emphasizing the often paralyzing intensity of his passion, is less interested in praising the remote mistress who inspires such devotion than he is in displaying his own poetic virtuosity and his capacity for self-denial. Such a love—like Romeo’s for Rosaline—is founded upon frustration and requires rejection. The lover is interested in affirming the uniqueness of his beloved only in theory. On closer look, she too becomes a generic object and he more interested in self-display. Thus the play’s two languages of heterosexual desire—Petrarchan praise and anti-Petrarchan debasement—appear as opposite ends of a single continuum, as complementary discourses of woman, high and low. Even when Paris and old Capulet, discussing Juliet as prospective bride, vary the discourse to include a conception of woman as wife and mother, she remains an object of verbal and actual exchange.

In lyric poetry, the Petrarchan mistress remains a function of language alone, unheard, seen only as a collection of ideal parts, a center whose very absence promotes desire. Drama is a material medium, however. In drama, the Petrarchan mistress takes on embodiment and finds an answering voice, like Juliet’s gently noting her sonneteer-pilgrim’s conventionality: “You kiss by th’ book” ( 1.5.122 ). In drama, the mistress may come surrounded by relatives and an inconveniently insistent social milieu. As was noted above, Shakespeare distinguishes sharply between the social circumstances of adolescent males and females. Thus one consequence of setting the play’s domestic action solely within the Capulet household is to set Juliet, the “hopeful lady” of Capulet’s “earth” ( 1.2.15 ), firmly into a familial context which, thanks to the Nurse’s fondness for recollection and anecdote, is rich in domestic detail. Juliet’s intense focus upon Romeo’s surname—“What’s Montague? . . . O, be some other name” ( 2.2.43 , 44 )—is a projection onto her lover of her own conflicted sense of tribal loyalty. Unlike Romeo, whose deepest emotional ties are to his gang of friends, and unlike the more mobile daughters of Shakespearean comedy who often come in pairs, Juliet lives isolated and confined, emotionally as well as physically, by her status as daughter. Her own passage into sexual maturity comes first by way of parental invitation to “think of marriage now” ( 1.3.75 ). Her father invites Paris, the man who wishes to marry Juliet, to attend a banquet and feast his eyes on female beauty: “Hear all, all see, / And like her most whose merit most shall be” ( 1.2.30 –31). Juliet, in contrast, is invited to look only where her parents tell her:

I’ll look to like, if looking liking move.

But no more deep will I endart mine eye

Than your consent gives strength to make it fly.

( 1.3.103 –5)

The logic of Juliet’s almost instant disobedience in looking at, and liking, Romeo (rather than Paris) can be understood as the ironic fulfillment of the fears in traditional patriarchal culture about the uncontrollability of female desire, the alleged tendency of the female gaze to wander. Petrarchism managed the vexed question of female desire largely by wishing it out of existence, describing the mistress as one who, like the invisible Rosaline of this play, “will not stay the siege of loving terms, / Nor bide th’ encounter of assailing eyes” ( 1.1.220 –21). Once Romeo, in the Capulet garden, overhears Juliet’s expression of desire, however, Juliet abandons the conventional denial of desire—“Fain would I dwell on form; fain, fain deny / What I have spoke. But farewell compliment” ( 2.2.93 –94). She rejects the “strength” implied by parental sanction and the protection afforded by the Petrarchan celebration of chastity for a risk-taking experiment in desire that Shakespeare affirms by the beauty of the lovers’ language in their four scenes together. Juliet herself asks Romeo the serious questions that Elizabethan society wanted only fathers to ask. She challenges social prescriptions, designed to contain erotic desire in marriage, by taking responsibility for her own marriage:

If that thy bent of love be honorable,

Thy purpose marriage, send me word tomorrow,

By one that I’ll procure to come to thee,

Where and what time thou wilt perform the rite,

And all my fortunes at thy foot I’ll lay

And follow thee my lord throughout the world.

( 2.2.150 –55)

The irony in her pledge—an irony perhaps most obvious to a modern, sexually egalitarian audience—is that Romeo here is following Juliet on an uncharted narrative path to sexual fulfillment in unsanctioned marriage. Allowing her husband access to a bedchamber in her father’s house, Juliet leads him into a sexual territory beyond the reach of dramatic representation. Breaking through the narrow oppositions of the play’s two discourses of woman—as either anonymous sexual object (for Sampson and Gregory) or beloved woman exalted beyond knowing or possessing (for Petrarch)—she affirms her imaginative commitment to the cultural significance of desire as an individualizing force:

                          Come, civil night,

Thou sober-suited matron all in black,

And learn me how to lose a winning match

Played for a pair of stainless maidenhoods.

Hood my unmanned blood, bating in my cheeks,

With thy black mantle till strange love grow bold,

Think true love acted simple modesty.

( 3.2.10 –16)

Romeo, when he is not drawn by desire deeper and deeper into Capulet territory, wanders into the open square where the destinies of the play’s other young men—and in part his own too—are enacted. Because the young man’s deepest loyalty is to his friends, Romeo is not really asked to choose between Juliet and his family but between Juliet and Mercutio, who are opposed in the play’s thematic structure. Thus one function of Mercutio’s anti-Petrarchan skepticism about the idealization of woman is to offer resistance to the adult heterosexuality heralded by Romeo’s union with Juliet, resistance on behalf of the regressive pull of adolescent male bonding—being “one of the guys.” This distinction, as we have seen, is in part a question of speaking different discourses. Romeo easily picks up Mercutio’s banter, even its sly innuendo against women. Mercutio himself regards Romeo’s quickness at repartee as the hopeful sign of a return to a “normal” manly identity incompatible with his ridiculous role as lover:

Why, is not this better now than groaning for love? Now art thou sociable, now art thou Romeo, now art thou what thou art, by art as well as by nature. For this driveling love is like a great natural that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole.

( 2.4.90 –95)

Implicit here is a central tenet of traditional misogyny that excessive desire for a woman is effeminizing. For Mercutio it is the effeminate lover in Romeo who refuses shamefully to answer Tybalt’s challenge: “O calm, dishonorable, vile submission!” he exclaims furiously ( 3.1.74 ). Mercutio’s death at Tybalt’s hands causes Romeo temporarily to agree, obeying the regressive emotional pull of grief and guilt over his own part in Mercutio’s defeat. “Why the devil came you between us?” Mercutio asks. “I was hurt under your arm” ( 3.1.106 –8). Why, we might ask instead, should Mercutio have insisted on answering a challenge addressed only to Romeo? Romeo, however, displaces blame onto Juliet: “Thy beauty hath made me effeminate / And in my temper softened valor’s steel” ( 3.1.119 –20).

In terms of narrative structure, the death of Mercutio and Romeo’s slaying of Tybalt interrupt the lovers’ progress from secret marriage to its consummation, suggesting the incompatibility between romantic individualism and adolescent male bonding. The audience experiences this incompatibility as a sudden movement from comedy to tragedy. Suddenly Friar Lawrence must abandon hopes of using the love of Capulet and Montague as a force for social reintegration. Instead, he must desperately stave off Juliet’s marriage to Paris, upon which her father insists, by making her counterfeit death and by subjecting her to entombment. The legal finality of consummated marriage—which was the basis for Friar Lawrence’s hopes “to turn your households’ rancor to pure love” ( 2.3.99 )—becomes the instrument of tragic design. It is only the Nurse who would allow Juliet to accept Paris as husband; we are asked to judge such a prospect so unthinkable that we then agree imaginatively to Friar Lawrence’s ghoulish device.

In terms of the play’s symbolic vocabulary, Juliet’s preparations to imitate death on the very bed where her sexual maturation from girl- to womanhood occurred confirms ironically her earlier premonition about Romeo: “If he be marrièd, / My grave is like to be my wedding bed” ( 1.5.148 –49). Her brief journey contrasts sharply with those of Shakespeare’s comic heroines who move out from the social confinement of daughterhood into a freer, less socially defined space (the woods outside Athens in A Midsummer Night’s Dream , the Forest of Arden in As You Like It ). There they can exercise a sanctioned, limited freedom in the romantic experimentation of courtship. Juliet is punished for such experimentation in part because hers is more radical; secret marriage symbolically is as irreversible as “real” death. Her journey thus becomes an internal journey in which her commitment to union with Romeo must face the imaginative challenge of complete, claustrophobic isolation and finally death in the Capulet tomb.

It is possible to see the lovers’ story, as some critics have done, as Shakespeare’s dramatic realization of the ruling metaphors of Petrarchan love poetry—particularly its fascination with “death-marked love” ( Prologue. 9 ). 3 But, in pondering the implications of Shakespeare’s moving his audience to identify with this narrative of initiative, desire, and power, we also do well to remember the psychosocial dynamics of drama. By heightening their powers of identification, drama gives the members of an audience an embodied image of the possible scope and form of their fears and desires. Here we have seen how tragic form operates to contain the complex play of desire/identification. The metaphors of Petrarchan idealization work as part of a complex, ambivalent discourse of woman whose ultimate social function is to encode the felt differences between men and women on which a dominant male power structure is based. Romeo and Juliet find a new discourse of romantic individualism in which Petrarchan idealization conjoins with the mutual avowal of sexual desire. But their union, as we have seen, imperils the traditional relations between males that is founded upon the exchange of women, whether the violent exchange Gregory and Sampson crudely imagine or the normative exchange planned by Capulet and Paris. Juliet, as the daughter whose erotic willfulness activates her father’s transformation from concerned to tyrannical parent, is the greater rebel. Thus the secret marriage in which this new language of feeling is contained cannot here be granted the sanction of a comic outcome. When Romeo and Juliet reunite, it is only to see each other, dead, in the dim confines of the Capulet crypt. In this play the autonomy of romantic individualism remains “star-crossed.”

• The story of these massive shifts in European sensibility is told in a five-volume study titled A History of Private Life , gen. eds. Philippe Ariès and Georges Duby (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987–91). The study covers over three millennia in the history of western Europe. For the period most relevant to Romeo and Juliet, see vol. 3, Passions of the Renaissance (1989), ed. Roger Chartier, trans. Arthur Goldhammer, pp. 399–607.
• The best extended discussion of the dynamic of the feud is Coppélia Kahn, Man’s Estate: Masculine Identity in Shakespeare (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), pp. 83ff.
• Nicholas Brooke, Shakespeare’s Early Tragedies (London: Methuen, 1968), pp. 82ff.

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Screen Rant

Romeo and juliet: 20 differences between the play and the movie.

Romeo & Juliet's 1996 screen adaptation, Romeo + Juliet, was incredibly unique. But a lot changed between the original play and the movie.

• Verona becomes Verona Beach in Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, set in modern times with guns and TV news updates.
• Luhrmann modernizes Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, changing characters and setting but keeping original dialogue.
• Baz Luhrmann's adaptation of Romeo + Juliet uses guns instead of swords, updated costumes, and modernized character names.

In 1996, Baz Luhrmann turned his eye to the works of Shakespeare and created a finished product with several differences between the Romeo and Juliet play and the movie. William Shakespeare's 38 plays have proven to be quite memorable, but the one most adapted is Romeo and Juliet. It may have been first performed in the 1500s, but elements of the tragic play ("the star-crossed lovers") can be found in the likes of several popular TV shows, rom-coms, musicals, and even video games. None remained as loyal while making such drastic changes, as Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet .

Watch on Hulu

There are many modernizations of Shakespeare's works , such as 10 Things I Hate About You bringing Taming the Shrew to modern times. Few have done anything as kinetically different as Luhrmann's story using the original dialogue, but setting it in a modern-day Verona Beach. Shot almost like a long-form music video, Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet uses the original Shakespeare dialogue, but intersperses it with television footage, news crews, and car chases, making it like nothing fans of the Bard had ever seen while making it accessible for contemporary teenagers to understand the tragic love story.

6 Cleverly Disguised Teen Movies That Are Actually Shakespeare Adaptations

The setting is more modern in the romeo + juliet movie, fair verona becomes verona beach.

The original version of Romeo and Juliet is set long ago, with most guesses being the 14th or 15th century. People acted differently and the world operated with a different structure. The main change here is that Baz Luhrmann’s version is set in the modern-day (or at least 1990s America).

The Romeo and Juliet movie changes to allow cars, guns, FedEx trucks, cafés, and TVs. Everyone is also dressed in modern clothes and many people have dyed their hair. It couldn’t look more different, but the language remains unchanged.

Some Of The Lines Have Either Been Cut Or Altered In The Romeo + Juliet Movie

Only one character uses iambic pentameter.

Despite the language of the play remaining mostly unchanged, notably with the characters still referring to their guns as "swords," a few things did have to be adapted if it was to be shown on the big screen. One of the differences between the Romeo and Juliet play and movie was Luhrmann cutting some of the lines since he only had a certain run time to tell his version. Additionally, despite the majority of Romeo and Juliet being written in iambic pentameter, Father Laurence (Pete Postlethwaite) is the only character in Romeo + Juliet to speak in this meter .

The Montagues And Capulets Are Not Just Warring Families In Romeo + Juliet

The montagues and capulets are mafia empires running corporations.

Tying in with the updated location and time period, the actual presence and existence of the Montagues and Capulets are drastically different from the original play. Rather than being two families at war, the difference between the Romeo and Juliet play and movie is that the war here is between two rival businesses. In the movie, it is rival mafia empires. That made them criminal empires rather than prominent families. However, they pretend to be legitimate corporations with law enforcement in their pockets. With this comes a change in motivation for a lot of the major plot points in the story.

The Messenger/Prologue Chorus Is Replaced

News reports act as the chorus.

As the film modernizes the original play, it naturally had to find a new way to present the role usually fulfilled by the chorus, such as in the opening prologue. This is cleverly done by having a news anchor read these lines, presenting the chorus lines as if it were a news report on television screens .

Additionally, the TV also fulfills the role of the messenger that was in the play. Instead of the cast finding out about the Capulet's party by messenger, they see it announced on TV. This is not only a good way to modernize the story, but to make it work cinematically.

Rosaline's Role Is Reduced Drastically In The Plot Of Romeo + Juliet

Rosaline is not even seen in most adaptations.

Rosaline is a character that doesn't actually appear in the play but still plays an important factor. She is Romeo's (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) first love and the reason he is distraught at the beginning of the story, as she does not love him, instead swearing a vow of chastity. Rosaline is the main reason the Montagues visit the Capulet's party, as she is meant to be there.

In the film, Rosaline's role is reduced, though she still acts as a device to get Romeo to the party. Despite Romeo brooding at the beginning, his feelings for Rosaline appear to be presented as more of a crush, and Romeo's emotions are downplayed when Benvolio (Dash Mihok) asks why he is sad.

Rosaline's fate after the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet's romance has actually prompted much speculation. Books and movies both have speculated about how Rosaline might have reacted to her previous suitor dying after a whirlwind romance. Shows like Still Star-Crossed and movies like Hulu's Rosaline have attempted to answer those questions.

Rosaline Cast & Character Guide

The balcony scene is cut from the romeo + juliet movie, the scene plays out in a pool instead.

The balcony scene is arguably the most iconic scene of not only Romeo and Juliet, but of Shakespeare's entire works. It is a scene frequently referenced in pop culture and it is well-known to most people, even if they have never read or watched the play in any form. So it's pretty surprising that the film decided to change this legendary scene. In Romeo and Juliet 1996 vs the play, Luhrmann first reduced the 190 lines to just 90 lines. Secondly, the setting changed from an orchard scene to a more modern scene in a swimming pool .

The Tone Of The Marriage Proposal Is A Lot More Immature

The romeo + juliet movie makes it seem impulsive.

In the original play, the scene where Romeo proposes that he and Juliet (Claire Danes) should get married is normally perceived as being a serious part of the play. However, one of the differences between the Romeo and Juliet play and the movie is that the characters are less serious.

Instead, they are giggling and laughing as they relay the lines that are more commonly acted out more earnestly on stage. Of course, this could be Luhrmann's way of presenting how happy the two are, so joyous that they keep smiling and laughing, but it downplays the importance of their union and how it would unite their two houses.

Paris’ Death Is Excluded From The Romeo + Juliet Movie

Romeo kills paris in the play.

In the original version of Romeo and Juliet , Romeo goes to the Capulet crypt to find Juliet. However, when he gets there, Paris is there grieving the loss of Juliet and Romeo kills him during a fight. The Romeo and Juliet movie changes this. Firstly, Paris is called Dave Paris in the Romeo and Juliet cast , and secondly, he isn’t in the crypt at all, meaning Romeo doesn’t bump into anyone there.

In turn, this means Dave Paris ends the film very much alive , while the Romeo and Juliet play provided that cruel twist ending everyone is too familiar with. This makes a major change, as his death showed how the battle even killed innocent people who were not part of the feud.

Lady Montague Is Alive At The End Of The Romeo + Juliet Movie

Lady montague dies after romeo is exiled in the play.

Although six people died in the play, Baz Luhrmann's version reduced this number to four as he left two individuals alive. Not only did he omit Paris' death from his script, but he also omitted Lady Montague's death too (who can be seen sitting in the limousine at the very end).

While the Shakespearean play said she died as a result of Romeo being exiled, it appeared that Luhrmann didn't think it was as important in his adaptation since she didn't have much impact on the story. Of course, her fate could have remained the same, but it was not part of the movie's tale.

The Montagues And Capulets Don't Reconcile At The End Of Romeo + Juliet

The families symbolically reconcile in the play.

Luhrmann continued to create differences between the Romeo and Juliet play and movie by not including the reconciliation. This came in the final act of the tragedy when the two fathers walked into the church and discovered that their children died. To pay tribute, they decide to end the feud and build two statues of them side-by-side.

It's possible Luhrmann decided not to include this scene because it overlooked Romeo and Juliet's deaths. However, they were the most important people in their parent's lives, so Luhrmann instead had them contemplate the brevity of the situation and how their violent feud cost several people their lives.

Balthasar And Friar Laurence Don't Appear In The Ending Of Romeo + Juliet

Balthasar and friar laurence explain events in the play's final act.

While they appeared in the movie version, some people might not have realized that Balthasar (Jesse Bradford) and Father Laurence should also have been involved in the final act. In the play, it is Balthasar and Friar Laurence who discover Romeo and Paris' bodies and explain why this tragedy came about. However, given that the movie is set in a more modern era, where technology and autopsies are more advanced, and marriage certificates are easy to track, the two families would have been able to quickly figure out what happened, which would mean that this scene was not needed.

The Prince And Paris' Familial Relationship Is Excluded From Romeo + Juliet

Paris is the son of the governor.

With Paris still alive at the end of the movie, it appears that Lurhmann had cut the familial ties between Paris and Captain Prince (Vondie Curtis-Hall), since they were declared "kinsmen" in the play. Although some might say that it didn't really affect the story as much since Paris and Prince Escalus didn't really interact, it changed the interpretation of the play slightly.

Not only was Paris' death meant to highlight the immense tragedy further, but the Prince's grief was to show that innocent people were also caught up in this family's feud. Once again, this allowed Luhrmann to keep the focus on Romeo and Juliet and not as much on the other casualties.

Paris' Familial Relationship With Mercutio Is Also Excluded From The Movie

They are referenced as kinsmen in the play.

Since the play established that Paris and Mercutio (Harold Perrineau) were kinsmen to the Prince, it also appears that the movie adaptation excluded their familial ties to each other. The only one Lurhmann keeps intact is that of Mercutio and Captain Prince.

Given that Mercutio played a pivotal role in Luhrmann's version of the play , it makes sense the director kept Captain Prince and Mercutio's relationship as it emphasized that even outsiders can be drawn into the family feud. It also makes a lot of sense that he would cut Mercutio and Paris's ties too, since they didn't even interact in the play or acknowledge their relationship with each other.

Juliet Wakes Up Before Romeo Dies

Juliet wakes up after romeo's death in the play.

The twist ending is one of the reasons why Romeo + Juliet is one of the most memorable adaptations. Where the play sees a heartbroken Romeo take his own life before Juliet wakes up, one of the differences between the Romeo and Juliet play and movie is that the film changes this.

Instead of the heartbreakingly unfulfilled, and brutal ending of the original, Luhrmann has Juliet wake up just before Romeo dies, so they can share a quick kiss before she takes her own life. It was a silly end that Hot Fuzz made fun of in its mock Romeo and Juliet play, which itself was the cast adapting the Luhrmann movie - not the play, including the movie's song "Lovefool."

The Misuse Of Drugs Is Different In The Romeo + Juliet Movie

Romeo is seen taking a pill early in the movie.

One of the differences between the Romeo and Juliet play and the movie is its depiction of drugs. In the play, the only time "drugs" are used is when Juliet takes tonic to fake her death or the poison Romeo drinks at the end. However, the misuse of drugs is completely different in the Lurhmann version as Romeo is seen taking a pill before he enters the Capulets' party.

While this might have been the director's way of making it modern, it added to the symbolism and hidden meanings. This isn't to say there weren't drugs in the 15th century, as marijuana (The Herb) was around in those days, which created hashish. With that said, Shakespeare didn't use it in his play.

Baz Lurhmann Replaces Swords With Guns In The Romeo + Juliet Movie

The guns are actually named swords.

Baz Luhrman’s film replaced the swords from the original with much more modern guns. Swords obviously require a lot of close combat, which means fights need to be done from close range. A gun could end a fight in less than a second, which could reduce the dramatic tension. Having said that, shootouts give the scene the Hollywood edge and make the film fit the 1990s more.

It was also needed because people in the 1990s wouldn't likely be carrying swords in a beachside town. Luckily, the dialogue still referred to the guns as "swords," keeping the callback to the play intact in this Romeo and Juliet adaptation . The guns were also stamped with the name "sword" to make the naming convention make sense .

The Costumes In Romeo + Juliet Are More Reflective Of Their Personalities

Other adaptations have simply employed masks to cover identities.

During the Capulet party, the costumes in the original Shakespeare play seem nothing particularly outlandish, with the characters wearing Elizabethan garments that would have been worn during any part of that era. However, in the film, Luhrmann decides to dress each character in a costume that reflects their personality.

The audience sees Juliet with ethereal angel wings and Tybalt dressed as the devil. It's not just the party. Mercutio’s glitzy lingerie set and cape were perfect for his character's personality and the flaming sacred heart on the Hawaiian shirt Romeo wore was iconic. Australian costume designer Kym Barrett delivered strongly for the movie .

Baz Lurhmann Gave The Characters Modern Names In The Romeo + Juliet Movie

Lurhmann also gave some characters first names.

Baz Luhrmann kept the dialogue the same as it would have been so many hundreds of years ago, but he changed the Romeo and Juliet character names . Paris gets a first name in Dave. The Montagues are named Caroline and Ted, while the Capulets are named Fulgencio and Gloria. Friar Laurence is turned into Father Laurence and Prince Escalus becomes Captain Prince, a police chief. These differences between the Romeo and Juliet play and the movie make sense. Friar makes no sense in 1990s America and the police officer being a captain is also the proper title for the time.

Some Minor Characters' Affiliations Are Swapped Around In Romeo + Juliet

This allowed some characters to have larger roles.

Luhrmann decided to shuffle the affiliations of certain minor characters around. It’s a little confusing for those already familiar with the characters and doesn’t seem to make much sense or have any reasoning behind it. Abram (Vincent Laresca) and Petruchio (Carlos Manzo) become Capulets despite being Montagues in the original, while Sampson (Jamie Kennedy) and Gregory (Zak Orth) are Montagues in the film. Sampson, in particular, is an interesting one, as he becomes Romeo’s cousin, whereas before he was nothing more than a Capulet servant.

Friar John Is Excluded From The Romeo + Juliet Movie Altogether

Friar john isn't needed in the modern story.

Although he isn’t exactly a huge presence in the original play, Friar John nevertheless exists and has a certain role to fulfill. His character is used as a tool to send a letter from Friar Laurence to Romeo, but regrettably, he is unable to fulfill his duty because he becomes quarantined after an outbreak of plague. His small role is ultimately unsuccessful, but this makes him hugely important to the plot. He was supposed to tell Romeo about Juliet's false death, and since he never arrived, it led to Romeo's death.

Of the differences between the Romeo and Juliet play and the movie, this one might have been omitted because Laurence could just overnight the letter, which he did. There's no need for someone to deliver a message on foot between two people they know when such things as overnight mail service exist. It's one of the Romeo and Juliet differences that makes the most sense .

Romeo + Juliet

Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Romeo and Juliet — Comparative Analysis Of Gnomeo And Juliet And Romeo And Juliet

Comparative Analysis of Gnomeo and Juliet and Romeo and Juliet

• Categories: Romeo and Juliet William Shakespeare

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Published: Dec 16, 2021

Words: 961 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

• Kleij, S. (2020). “What’s in a Gnome?”: Gender, Intertextuality, and Irreverence in Gnomeo and Juliet. In Playfulness in Shakespearean Adaptations (pp. 231-247). Routledge. (https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780429288807-17/gnome-sonja-kleij)
• Tuan, H. C. (2013). Media Representing Shakespeare: Adaptation, Inter-Textuality, and Gender. Journal of Literature and Art Studies, 3(2), 71-79. (https://www.davidpublisher.com/index.php/Home/Article/index?id=4305.html)
• Geal, R. (2018). Anomalous foreknowledge and cognitive impenetrability in Gnomeo and Juliet. Adaptation, 11(2), 111-121. (https://academic.oup.com/adaptation/article-abstract/11/2/111/3855688)
• van Valkenburg, A. M. (2012). A Gnome for a Gnome: A Closer Look at Gnomeo and Juliet as an Adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Play (Bachelor's thesis). (https://studenttheses.uu.nl/handle/20.500.12932/11416)
• King, L. The Hidden Value in Repetitive Culture. (https://sites.williams.edu/engl-117-fall16/uncategorized/the-value-behind-a-repetitive-culture/)

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