Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story share many similar themes. Romeo and Juliet both tell a story of overcoming prejudice and hatred, of Forbidden love and defying stereotypes that no one thought could be broken. The two stories are similar in many ways, even though their settings are centuries apart: Romeo and Juliet set in the 1500s and West Side Story set in the 1950s Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story teach a lesson about how prejudice can teach you to hate and how one of your rivals can be the one who helps you remember how to love. In both Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story, prejudices are so strong between two distinct groups of people that hatred is passed from generation to generation, always against the same rival group. Prejudice is so influential that the act of hating them becomes as common as their simple existence, there are two distinct groups of people, the Montagues and Capulets: Romeo a Montague and Juliet a Capulet. The Montagues and the Capulets have always hated each other: the two families are in constant feud. The children of one family hate the children of the other, the servants spit on rival servants. The prejudice is so deep, in fact, that the mere thought of cross-socialization is absurd. In West Side Story, the premise is quite similar. The two rival gangs are the Jets, the Americans, and the Sharks, the Puerto Ricans. The Jets hate sharks because they feel like they are invading their territory when they walk the streets of New York as easily as the Jets. The Jets and Sharks have been in a constant state of turmoil since Puerto Ricans began moving to America in a... middle of paper ...... measurable and choices you never thought you'd make are being made . Romeo and Juliet decided that they would marry until death separated them: they loved each other so much that even then they did not separate. They committed suicide to be together, together in a place, hopefully, where they could be free from prejudice and hatred. Even Tony and Maria never had the chance to run away and live together in this place. While both stories tell how hate, prejudice, forbidden love, and stereotypes change a person, neither mentions what truly made their lives impossible: revenge. A revenge so profound that it ends human lives. This was revenge that didn't solve any problems, but simply led to even bigger problems. So maybe, while love can do miraculous things, like help you forget how to hate your enemies, it can't quite eliminate vengeance..