How does Romeo and Juliet relate to teenagers today?

Answer 1

It compares to youth today because most of the same themes carry over into the modern society. People fall in love everyday, there are still families who dislike and argue over each other. Families who often argue teach their younger generation to dislike the other family causing them to altercate and kill each other out of spite and hatred, and people still make stupid choices in life. Hopefully we learn from the mistakes of others and do not repeat it. Unfortunately Romeo and Juliet shows the nasty side of human altercations.

Answer 2

They didn't!! Nobody even remembers who they are or write songs called Romeo and Juliet, or make movies about them, or based on them. That movie due to be released in 2013 with Hailee Steinfeld and Douglas Booth--there is no such thing. That song by Taylor Swift? She never sung it. Gnomeo and Juliet? It was based on Milton's Paradise Lost.

Answer 3

It compares to youth today because most of the same themes carry over into the modern society.

People fall in love everyday, there are still who dislike and argue over each other. Families who often argue teach their younger generation to dislike the other family causing them to altercate and kill each other out of spite and hatred, and people still make stupid choices in life.

Hopefully we learn from the mistakes of others and do not repeat it. Unfortunately Romeo and Juliet shows the nasty side of human interaction.

Answer 4

Shakespeare's plays are relevant to everyone at some point. Some of the plays which relate especially to teens are:

1. Romeo and Juliet. Passions can run high when you are young. Like many young couples, Romeo and Juliet feel like it is "you and me against the world". Juliet in particular has to struggle with overbearing parents who make wrong assumptions about what she wants and what is making her unhappy. At the same time she realizes that the ethical standards of her parents and her surrogate mother, the nurse, are insufficient. Juliet has to find her own standards of conduct and act on them. You really see this happening when Juliet says "shall I speak ill of he who is my husband?"

2. Henry IV Parts 1 and 2. Being groomed to take over the family business can be a drag. Like many young people trapped in their parents' expectations, Hal rebels by associating with a group of totally undesirable people: theives, prostitutes, drunkards and layabouts. This sort of thing can drive parents to despair--it certainly does for Hal's father. But what the father does not see is that the son is learning from the experience how to be a better king than his father could ever hope to be.

3. A Midsummer Night's Dream. Somewhere between childhood where we are not interested in sex and adulthood where we settle in with a long-term partner there is a time when we experiment with different relationships. People's emotions and attractions for each other change as if by magic. It is easy to sympathize both with the young men whose passions have changed inexplicably and the young women who are befuddled by the changes in the men.

4. Much Ado About Nothing. Another Shakespeare play about relationships--this time about people who get caught up in a habit of fighting, which obscures their real attraction for each other. There is a lot for awkward young lovers to sympathize with here.

5. All's Well that Ends Well. Before you say, "Never heard of it!" hear me out. This is a play about a girl with a heavy crush on an impossible guy. She is daring and clever and sneaky and resourceful, however, and she gets him to marry her. His heart is not in it, and he runs off, and she has to be even more daring and clever and sneaky and resourceful to get him back. Looked at from one perspective it examines just what you can expect to get from manipulating people. From another perspective it examines the irresponsibility of the guy, Bertram, and what it takes to wake up to the reality of what is going on. There is a lot in this play to interest young people.

6. Merry Wives of Windsor. Not the main plot so much as the subplot, another vindication of the right of young people (in this case Anne Page) to choose their own lives.

Answer 5

The elements of the Romeo and Juliet story are timeless--the struggle between a younger generation and an older one, and the feeling that many young couples get that it is "you and me against the world". The perspective of the young which makes despair appear easy and suicide an option is also timeless.

One aspect of the story which can change its popularity is the downer ending. There is a part of our society at the present time which has a difficulty with tragedy and wants every story to end with everyone living happily ever after. The result is "remakes" of Romeo and Juliet where they do not die at all, and everyone is happy in the end. A similar approach was taken to King Lear in the 18th century, where it was felt that the death of the innocent Cordelia did not fit with their view of the proper way to end a play (i.e. the virtuous succeed and the guilty are destroyed) so they rewrote it with Cordelia surviving and marrying Kent.

Possibly the objective in wanting to change the ending is to prevent the young from being traumatized by the deaths of the hero and heroine. Indeed, there are many young people who have been carefully insulated from the concept of tragedy. Whether this will result in the twenty-first century being a time where artificially happy endings rule the day and the true Romeo and Juliet story is replaced by a sugary substitute, time will tell. However, the reality is that tragedy is a part of life, and has always been a part of literature for that reason, so Romeo and Juliet, like King Lear, will always come back in its original form.

Answer 6

Do teenagers still fall in love? Do teenagers still think their parents don't understand them? Do teenagers still commit suicide? Thought so.

Answer 7

yes romeo and Juliet is relevant to today because shakespeare is skuxx deluxx

Answer 8

It can be modernized for the benefit of younger children and the story can be taught for education and poetry.

Answer 9

Today's teenagers do not fight with their parents, go to parties, fall in love, and want to have sex with each other. If they did, Romeo and Juliet would be very relevant to them.