ITESM-CEM

Karla Valeria Gutiérrez Silva 968197

Literature and New Media Narratives
Essay

Tybalt: the prince of cats

My favorite character from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is Tybalt, and in the 1996 movie adaptation of this
drama I think that probably at first the idea of a modern scenario in the movie was a little bit weird, but the ideas as
well as the characters were really well adapted. I think that Tybalt was really well represented, because the
character maintains his personality as it was. Also the movie gave him an appearance that in the drama was never
mentioned, another thing to mention is that he was still the one that created the climax and converted the story into
a tragedy, and is mainly because of this that I think that Tybalt was represented accurately on the film

Tybalt in my personal opinion had the same personality in the drama and the movie, which was great,
because he being the bad guy should have the choleric and stubborn personality that characterizes him, as in the
drama he’s just willing to fight with any Montague that he sees but specially with Romeo, he’s a hot headed guy and
this can be appreciated in the party when he was going to kill Romeo or when he picks the fight with Mercutio, what
I liked about the character in the film was that he had this kind of cool guy personality which in my opinion suits him
really well in the modern era that the film was adapted to, I can say that the personality of this character passed
almost intact from the drama to the movie.

Another characteristic of Tybalt that I think was greatly done in the film is his appearance, he had this look of
a mafia boss with the boots and suits he was wearing, also the facial features like the beard and the sideburns
contributed to gave him a great look. I can say that the movie really helped to establish an image for him, mainly
because when you read the original work there’s not a real description of his appearance, one of the moments
when I think the characterization was great was in the masquerade when he was in the devil’s suit, it really showed
his true nature as a villain in a comical way. Probably his looks are not the ones that you imagine while reading the
book, but if you transfer that story to 1996 the character just fits in the paper and in the appearance that they gave
to him, the bad guy who dresses impeccable, and is just a great gunman, probably when adapting the movie to that
time this was the best choice for Tybalt appearance.

Even though that he’s a secondary character and a flat character that doesn’t change through the movie, he
conserved the main purpose of this character which is to make Romeo and Juliet a real tragedy, he creates the
turning point when killing Mercutio and the dueling with Romeo, even after Mercutio’s death he doesn’t changes
even a bit in his personality he still was as stubborn as always not to mention he was full of rage. In the movie I liked
the fact that like in the book even if he doesn’t speak that much he still changes the course of the story, even if he’s
a flat character he’s a really important character in the story, and I think that the movie really featured this
fantastically with the fight scenes and the dialogues and also the story at this part was really conserved as it was,
which contributed to make the character as important as it is.
 I can say that the movie was probably not one of my favorites because of the comical tint of it, but I can say
that in my opinion the character of Tybalt was really great adapted to the film and to the time that the story was
transferred to, his personality was portrayed almost perfectly in the film, it was not perfect for me because it was a
little bit exaggerated, also his appearance was really well done, because you really can imagine the character being
like that, and the look that was portrayed in the movie really helped to complete character’s personality, also the
thing that I liked the most of the movie is the fact that they kept the role that Tybalt has as the one creating the
turning point, because even if he’s not a main character or if he’s just a flat character the way that he affects the
story is really important, and this was in my opinion perfectly represented in the movie, they gave the character no
less importance and in my opinion the movie featured a great adaptation of Shakespeare’s Tybalt.