Character comparison from Romeo and Juliet:

Mercutio (book vs movie adaptation from 1996)

Romeo and Juliet is one of the most remembered stories due to the development of the main characters and because of the course that the story takes while this last one is developing. But a great story can´t be so good without good characters and Mercutio is a character that it is essential in the story, and due to this and the fact that the Mercutio is the character that has an extremely weird appearance in the 1996 film adaptation, I consider him my favorite character and one worth of a comparison between the same character in the book and the film.

Mercutio has a reason to be there in the plot and it is in both versions of the story. He is the one that takes Romeo to the Capulet party, he also is the one that has not problems to be with both families (being Romeo´s friend and a relative from Paris) so he is more like and important link between the families although we didn’t notice, and he is the main reason that makes Romeo to kill Tyball and take the story to a climax.

Both versions of the story have some great differences, but those facts dont break the key functions of the character. Thought Mercutio is an Afro-American person in the film that doesn’t change the fact that he is accepted the same way in the novel. Also because of the fact that he is homosexual in the film, this is more like a strength to the character similar to his counterpart from the novel, because he can comprehend more the feelings of love. And also the way he is represented in the film more like a jokester and more liberal than I thought that it was in the novel, it still has his essence intact.

Mercutio is present at some key points of the story and although his drag queen attitude its now present, he serves his purpose really good: he just hates how Romeo it is all depressed, so due to this fact, he tries to motivate him by inviting him to the Capulet party. He is the one that approves Romeo’s happiness thought he didn’t know that Romeo just was in love with a Capulet and at his dead, he gives us a prediction that both families are going to suffer, when he casts a plague.

As a conclusion I could say that the film and the novel version are so similar and thought the character has some differences in the film adaptation, it still doesn’t lose his essence and purpose, because it could be said that he is a bridge that links the development of the story by giving Romeo at some points of the story a motivation or an advice.