Love, Loss, and Hope in Retellings of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet by Melanie Hundley

One of the greatest gifts of doing graduate work at The University of Georgia was the opportunity to share an office with Melanie Hundley for three years. Melanie is a prolific reader and I still am amazed at how quickly and how many books she manages to read. Being associated with her was an ongoing crash course in YA literature. A few years later, the two of us along with Jackie Bach co-edited The ALAN Review. 

I am very excited about her special Friday edition post. This is an added glimpse at one of the UNLV Summit presenters. Melanie her colleague at Vanderbilt, Emily Pendergrass, will be two of our presenters.  Thanks Melanie. 
Take to the chance to register here.

Love, Loss, and Hope in Retellings of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet
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Two households both alike in dignity, in fair Verona, where we lay our scene…
(Prologue)
These violent delights have violent ends…
(Act 2, Scene 6

Literature at its best leaves a mark on us as readers.  We see something that touches our hearts or makes us think about the world differently.  We see ourselves in stories and we see new and different worlds.  Shakespeare’s tragic story of Romeo and Juliet is one of those texts that often leaves its mark on readers.  We see this play’s influence in songs (Taylor Swift’s Love Story for example), in poetry (Maxine Kumin’s Purgatory) and in young adult literature retellings. What is it about Romeo and Juliet that keeps us coming back to this story?  What does/could their story look like in a contemporary setting?  Verona Comics by Jennifer Dugan and These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong are two new retellings of the classic story of Romeo and Juliet. These retellings highlight the excitement of love, the pain of loss, and the power of hope while addressing contemporary social issues.  

In Verona Comics, we meet Jubilee, an elite cellist, who works in her stepmom’s indie comic book store.  She focuses on preparing for the biggest audition of her life—the Carnegie Conservatory’s Summer Program. She knows that being a part of this program could help her career as a cellist.  The people around her—from her best friend Jayla to her parents—encourage her to experience new things, to do more than just focus on music.  She goes to a comic convention and works the booth representing her stepmom’s comic book store.  She meets Ridley, a seventeen-year-old boy in a Batman mask at the comic con prom. The meeting is awkward and endearing and their relationship grows from there. 

Ridley is the son of the owner of The Geekery, a chain of comic book stores.  His father is emotionally abusive and self-absorbed and forces Ridley into being a brand ambassador for the stores.  Ridley and Jubilee fall for each other, and in true star-crossed lovers’ style, events and people conspire to destroy their relationship.  What makes this particular story stand out is the character development. Ridley is anxiety ridden and has suicidal thoughts.  He spirals out of control before he gets the help and support he needs.  Dugan’s exploration of mental illness is nuanced and compassionate, and Ridley’s experiences with anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideations are fully explored as are Jubilee’s codependency issues.

​Romeo and Juliet retellings frequently focus on the overwhelming “violent passions” of the original story.  Verona Comics provides an ending where the two protagonists discover how unhealthy their relationship was for each of them and ends with both of them getting support and care. The cast of characters are racially diverse. An additional component of this story was the number of LGBTQ characters who are integral parts of the story.

​Like Verona Comics, These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong puts a twist on the tale of Romeo and Juliet.  This retelling is set in 1920s Shanghai where two rival gangs—the Scarlet Gang and the White Flowers—have been feuding for generations.  Juliette Cai, the eighteen-year-old daughter of the leader of the Scarlet Gang, returns from New York where she spent time as a flapper girl; she is set to begin her duties as the heir to the gang.  She has to prove that she can be as ruthless as her father has been so that the Scarlet Gang can remain in charge of the city.  Roma Montagov, the heir to the White Flowers, is both her first love (who betrayed her) and her family’s enemy.  

Gang members from both families begin to die in gruesome ways; they claw out their throats. Rumors of monsters and madness sweep through Shanghai. Is it a plague?  Is there a monster in the shadows making people ill? Juliette and Roma defy their families to work together to find out what is going on in their city.  The city itself becomes a character—one which is being pulled in multiple directions with the rise of communism, the Opium Wars, and the influences of colonialism. While Juliette and Roma work together, their feelings for each other create an ongoing challenge and angsty tension between them.  

​Juliette Cai is described as a “[k]iller. Violent. Ruthless.”  This is not the traditional way that Juliette is portrayed.  Roma is more emotional, he sees things as a means to an end, a way to get things done.  The supporting characters are well developed and nuanced.  Tyler, Juliette’s cousin, is hot-headed and quick-tempered. Marshall and Benedikt, Roma’s family, mirror Mercutio and Benvolio as Marshall is a troublemaker and Benedikt is the peacekeeper.  Juliette and Roma, the star-crossed lovers, do not get to be together in this particular version of the story (there will be a sequel), but both of them have more personal power and choice in this story than in Shakespeare’s version of the story.  

The language in These Violent Delights is rich and descriptive as it incorporates the slang of the 1920s.  Additionally, the author uses Chinese, Korean, and Russian throughout the story.  Roma, for example, is descended from Russian immigrants and uses Russian as part of his culture.  The political aspects of this story both mirror and expand on the divisions that we see in Verona in Shakespeare’s play.  There is fighting in the streets of Verona and the Prince steps in to stop it.  In These Violent Delights, the fighting in the streets is between the rival gangs and occurs amid the political and economic turmoil of the 1920s in Shanghai.  The mix of history, mystery, feuds, and supernatural elements creates a powerful reimagining of Romeo and Juliet. 

Both Verona Comics and The Violent Delights offer readers what readers come to literature for; they offer glimpses into new and strange worlds and the comfort of familiar stories. The story Shakespeare tells in Romeo and Juliet predates his writing of the play.  Just as playgoers flocked to The Globe to see Shakespeare’s version, so too do today’s readers flock to contemporary retellings.  This story endures. Readers see something in the text that they connect to, and young adult authors see the play and ask, What if?  What if Romeo and Juliet were contemporary characters?  What would their story be

Dr. Melanie Hundley is a Professor in the Practice of English Education at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College; her research examines how digital and multimodal composition informs the development of pre-service teachers’ writing pedagogy.  Additionally, she explores the use of digital and social media in young adult literature.  She teaches writing methods courses that focus on digital and multimodal composition and young adult literature courses that explore race, class, gender, and sexual identity in young adult texts.  She has taught both middle and high school English Language Arts. She is currently the Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Department of Teaching and Learning.

Until next week.