Реферат: West Side Story With Romeo And Juliet

means to an end, only he expresses it in layman’s terms: "Chino? Chino?

Come and get me, too, Chino" (Laurents 139). While roaming the streets,

searching for Chino, Tony spots Maria, alive and well. Just as they are about to

embrace, a shot rings out, and Tony falls via Chino’s violent hand, Maria

catching him as he stumbles (Laurents 141). However, whereas Juliet, upon

discovering Romeo’s death, ends her life by falling upon Romeo’s dagger

(V.iii.169). An anguished Maria doesn’t end hers, although she speaks of it with

Chino’s gun in hand, she asks, "How many can I kill, Chino? How many and

still have one bullet left for me?" (Laurents 143). Whereas Romeo and

Juliet’s love was one intended to last an eternity, attaining a spiritual realm

with their deaths, that of Tony and Maria was restricted to the material world,

ending "with Tony’s death and . . . forever lost" (Poelstra). Even so,

the relationships in both plays reflect the "intolerance, misunderstanding,

and mistrust that seem to be ever-present in human society". Perhaps this

makes the themes of love and fear, that abound in both plays, all the more

relevant to our modern, commercialized, technological and, to some extent, still

segregated society, and, therefore, a more accessible vehicle for today’s

audience (Poelstra). West Side Story allows the basic elements of a story four

centuries old to be retold in a fairly modern-day setting (after all, street

gangs are more prominent now than ever before). A retelling that has garnered

its own wide audience appeal over the past four decades, showing that certain

tales can stand the test of time more than once, provided the content and

context effectively reflects the world within which it occurs.

530

Works Cited Laurents, Arthur. West Side Story. (A musical, based on a conception

of Jerome Robbins; music by Leonard Bernstein; lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.) NY:

Random House, 1966. Poelstra, James. "Romeo and Juliet vs. West Side

Story." (17 July 97). Shakespeare, William. Romeo and Juliet. The Complete

Works of William Shakespeare, Volume I. Ed. W. G. Clark and W. Aldis Wright. NY: