So, I’m watching Romeo and Juliet and wondering why people in tragedies or epic stories make the decisions they do that bring them to the torments they inevitably endure.
I realize the easy answer is, “the author wrote them to.” But, having been a writer (perhaps even as a writer in the present tense?), I know that characters often take on a mind of their own, as they say, and, especially when characters are based on actual events, they are based on the decisions made by real people in similar (although perhaps less fantastic) circumstances. But no less extreme, I’d say.
I’m thinking particularly about modernizing Romeo and Juliet, and I can find almost no way to do it in which the ONLY route either youth has is to commit suicide over the death of the other. In the age of social media and instant communication, it’s almost impossible to imagine that a message could not get to Romeo SOMEHOW that Juliet is not really dead. I can go through every scenario and always find a flaw that keeps them from finishing the play the way it was written.
a) EVERY rich kid has a cell phone. Every POOR kid has a fucking cell phone. EVERYONE has a motherfucking cell phone nowadays, or at least knows someone with a cell phone they can use to send a text and be like, “yo this is Julie plz tell Romeo I’m taking a potion to make me look dead come get me in the tomb when I wake up.”
Now, it’s possible her parents steal her phone and she can’t get to a friend’s phone to text this. OK. I’ve got that covered.
2) The PRIEST probably has a fucking cell phone. Or at least email. So maybe that doesn’t work because he doesn’t have Romeo’s number or anyone else’s number in Romeo’s posse and still has to send a snail mail letter or call on a landline. So maybe the priest still doesn’t reach Romeo. I get this, it could happen.
I’ve still got that covered.
d) We live in the 21st century. Unless this version of the story is taking place in India, Pakistan, or maybe even China, no parents can make a teenage child get married against their will.
Now, before you go, but Rachel, arranged marriages still happen even in America, I’m aware of this. But, in this enlightened age, there’s no way in hell Juliet wouldn’t just run away before choosing death, and even if she’s arrested or picked up by social services at any point during the course of events, she can explain to the cops and/or social worker about her home life and they can set her up in foster care or at least keep her from being forced to marry! Then all she has to do is wait 2 years until she’s 18 and then she can do whatever the fuck she wants, so there’s really no need for the sleep of death potion in the first place, thus no mix up, thus no suicides.
The only real way to remake Romeo and Juliet for modern times is to create an alternate reality society in which we don’t have immediate access to incredibly fast communication, and that parents would have to have the kind of control over their children that they used to, without any allowance for interference from outside sources (i.e. child abuse laws, child labor laws, age of consent, etc.) Anything else and the suspension of disbelief becomes too great for an audience to be able to cope with. Or, at least, an audience that understands that the change in society changes the environments that shape the decisions of these characters.
So that’s what I’ve been thinking. How are all of you? :-P