ity.
             The similarities of the stories end with the final disaster in which the love affair between a beauty of one rivalry group with a male leader of the other rivalry group ends when he is killed. The authors let their story happen in a different time and a different place but, as I hope to show in the following paragraphs, the plots only have minor differences.
             This is the Capulet family code of arms according to a
             website of a popular1996 Hollywood movie production.
             The way in which the main characters meet one another is very similar. In Romeo and Juliet, the two lovers meet at a party thrown by Juliet's parents, the Capulets. Members of the Montegue household are not invited of course, but Romeo gets in, wearing a disguise. In Westside Story, Tony and Maria also meet at a party, in their case a gang dance. There is an instant "love at first sight" in both stories, but it is a forbidden love, a dangerous situation because of the rivalry between the two groups. When Juliet is seen dancing and spending time with Romeo, she is warned by her nurse not to stay with him. When Maria is caught dancing with Tony, she is also told not to see him. The key line here is that she should "stick with her own kind", namely immigrants from Puerto Rico. But the main characters of both stories defy such warnings, prepared to sacrifice their own background for their love. They become the champions of love and examples to many of what romantic love somehow "should be".
             In each story, the main characters pronounce their love for one another from a highly visible and therefore dangerous location. Romeo climbs up to the balcony of Juliet's house, a
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