Similarities And Differences Between Romeo And Juliet Play And Movie

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Register to read the introduction… In the play, Friar John has been sent to Mantua to inform Romeo of Juliet's phony suicide. He is unsuccessful in getting the message to Romeo due to being quarantined because he has been "in a house / Where the infectious pestilence did reign [. . .]" (Shakespeare 5.2). In the movie, the message from Friar Lawrence to Romeo is sent through a delivery service called "poste haste." The message is "blown away in the dust-laden wind" (Downing 5). In both the play and the movie, Balthasar goes to Mantua to tell Romeo that Juliet is "laid low in her kindred's vault" (Shakespeare 5.1). Balthasar is unaware of the fake suicide and believes that Juliet is truly dead. Because Balthasar reaches Romeo before Friar Lawrence can get word to him, the love between Romeo and Juliet is doomed. In the movie, when the letter does not get delivered to Romeo, the audience can see how important the letter is by how upset Friar Lawrence is when he learns that the letter has been returned. On the other hand, the reading of the play does not reveal Friar Lawrence's reaction as vividly as the movie …show more content…
In the play, Juliet awakens after Romeo has drunk the poison and dies. However, in the movie, "Luhrmann [. . .] has Juliet wake up in order to watch Romeo die, [. . .] allowing [her . . .] to hear Romeo's last words" (Downing 5). In Shakespeare, the two fathers have vowed to put their hatred behind them by building golden statues in honor of their children. Luhrmann, on the other hand, does not have the two families end their feuding. The movie portrays how nothing, even death, will stop the feuding between the two families. The play and the movie differ dramatically in this last scene.

From the beginning we are told, "Verona was being torn by a terrible, bloodthirsty feud which no human endeavor had been able to settle [. . .]" (Charlton 147). In the play and the movie, Romeo and Juliet are similar to all victims of tragedy. Both characters "are isolated-even from each other-before they are destroyed" (Goldman 167). In the play and the movie, their families' names, Romeo's banishment from Verona, and the poison separate them. The feud "was the direct cause of the death of the lovers, and but for those deaths it never would have been healed" (Charlton

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