Artifacts and Theme
Jennifer Moore
Southern New Hampshire University
HUM200: Applied Humanities
Benjamin Truitt
May 11, 2022
1
Artifacts and Theme
Cultural Artifacts
The first artifact that I have chosen is Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. It was
written by Shakespeare about 1594-96 in his period of “early mastery” during the Italian
Renaissance. Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet to help couples appreciate their love for one
another. Romeo and Juliet has a setting in Verona, Italy. Verona up until 1405 was an
independent city but eventually become Venetian Republic. The second artifact that I have
chosen is West Side Story the musical. The music is by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen
Sondheim, and book by Arthur Laurents. West side Story is set in the mid-1950s, in the Upper
West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Which in this era was considered a multiracial, blue
collar neighborhood.
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
2
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.
3
