HUM 200 Project Part One: Exploration Document

Common Theme

The theme that is common between Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story is love and death. This is the type of love that helps young lovers ignore your loyalty to family and friends. The love that Romeo had for Juliet and Tony had for Maria was the love that had these young men disobey the loyalty and love for everyone around them including themselves at times. Society and their families expected something different from both of the lovers in each story. So much so that the act of suicide with Romeo and Juliet and the tragic death of Tony by Chino because he thought Maria was killed.

Personal Experience

Falling in love at a young age is hard to justify to either your parents or society.Either way no one really thinks you are in “love” and that is it just “puppy love”.Because how can anyone at a young age be in love or even know what love is? Well, when I was young, my husband and I fell in love and both sides of the family were like absolutely not. They were not having it. I grew up in what society saw as high class and my husband grew up in what society saw a low class. So, my parents did not see eye to eye with how his family was living and vice versa. It was very difficult. But I was fixing to turn the age of 18 and they could no longer control it caused many feuds in both sides of the family. Even though there were no deaths involved it seemed like death when we were not speaking to any family members, for both sides. We were excluded from both sides of the family for quite some time, but after all our story ended up a fairy tale and we are all together as one.

Profession

Counselling psychology is one of the professions that could be impacted by love and death. This is because psychologists are at most times involved in addressing the emotional and psychological needs of the clients. This include assisting the clients get over experiences of loss of loved ones and those who experience death. The success of any counsellor or psychologist in handling the cases can be influenced by the level of understanding of the professional on either death and love and how the two concepts relate to the mental and psychological wellbeing of the client (Challoner & Papayianni, 2018).

Humanities Resources

There are three main history resources that can be used. One of the resources that can be used include the OmniFile Full Text Mega. This is a database that provides a wide variety of secondary sources such as journal articles covering humanities on different topics and themes including death and love. Another humanities source is the Humanities Source Ultimate which provides a wide variety of humanity topics and how they influence human life in one different ways. The third source that can be used is JSTOR. This is more efficient in that it provides articles and books that have been authored from the 1900s to the present date (Somoza‐Fernández et al, 2018).

Historical Context

Romeo and Juliet was developed as a tool for creating awareness on important aspects in the society. During this era, love was considered an important tool in building successful families and communities. The West Side Story on the other side is used as a reflection of the changes that have occurred in relationships in the modern society as defined and shaped by the modern culture.

Similarities and Differences

The two cultural artifacts are similar in that they show how love can be used as a tool to overcome challenges in life. Although there is a difference in the way the challenges are presented in the artifacts as they reflect different times in history, they both show presence of love as the main strategy to walking together through life.

Medium

The two mediums are created through literature. The West Side Story is also developed through film where every part of the initial literature is captured.

Thesis Statement

Thesis statement: Love contributes significantly to the pain experienced in death of a person among the close relatives and associates left by the dead.

This statement is based on two major variables which also serves as the common themes in the literature. There is an independent variable which is love. Love also happens to be one of the themes that are common in the two artifacts that were selected for this discussion. The second variable which serves as the dependent variable in the discussion is death. Death is treated as the second part of the common theme that can be discussed in details in the discussion. In this discussion, the two artifacts can be analyzed in details to show or verify that the characters involved in the artifacts suffered great loss as a result of the love they had for the people who died. Also, the analysis can show ways in which the characters suffered as a result of death of the beloved partners or friends.

Audience

There are two main classifications of audiences that can be interested by the message. The first classification of the audience include the professionals in the field of psychology or those who are engaged in the mental and emotional health of individuals. The main reason these professionals would be interested is to determine theories that can be used in developing treatment plans for individuals experiencing mental discomfort and depressions as a result of losing people they loved most. Another classification or group of participants that can be interested in the discussion and the message are the youth between the ages of 19 to 35. This comprise of a majority of people who are either engaged, committed or at infatuation stages with their partners or lovers. Some of the people at this age live in the fantasy of being with their loved ones and partners for the rest of their lives where some are dedicated to make sacrifices for their loved ones.

Message

The message can be tailored through changing the wording and the way in which the message is expressed in the discussion. For instance, psychology professionals are more official and prefer scientific and detailed analysis of the highlighted themes. More evidence is needed in developing the paper. This is different when it comes to the second audience where they would prefer experiencing more suspicion and more fantasy in the way the themes on love and death are explained in the discussion. Use of a casual language would engage more people or a larger audience.

References

Atchity, K. J. (2021). Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. Salem Press Encyclopedia of Literature.

Lee, D. A. (2022). West Side Story (musical). Salem Press Encyclopedia.

Elizabeth A. Wells. (2011). West Side Story : Cultural Perspectives on an American Musical. Scarecrow Press.