Reversals in West Side Story

“West Side Story” is a musical drama loosely based on “Romeo and Juliet.” The musical instead highlights feuding between two gangs (if you could call dance-fighting gang like) and a love that blossoms amidst the fighting. Like “Romeo and Juliet,” “West Side Story” also shows the reversal of gender roles through their lead characters. Tony is to Romeo as Maria is to Juliet. Other parallals of characters can be seen through Doc, the Friar, and Bernardo is the equivalent of Tybalt.
The gender role reversal in Tony can be seen after he meets Maria. Although he does not act as feminine as Romeo does in his love for Juliet, Tony does show signs of femininity. He sings an entire song about Maria’s name, fantasizing about her as a school girl would of her crush. Out of all the other male characters, Tony tends to show his emotions more than the other men would. He openly expresses his feelings toward Maria, and after he hears of her supposed death, cries in front of Doc. He then cries throughout the streets trying to get Chino to shoot him. Whenever Tony is with Maria, he turns into a “softie” to comfort and take care of her. Maria is the one having to push Tony out of the window when Anita knocks on the door, because Tony does not wish to leave.
Maria’s gender reversal is shown in how she seems to be the manlier person in her relationship with Tony. She is the one who constantly tells him to be quiet for fear of waking her parents, and pushes him out the window before Anita catches them. At the end of the musical when Tony dies in Maria’s arms, she stays rather strong but still reaches her breaking point when picking up the handgun that Chino dropped. She brandishes is around yelling about how many men she could kill, and then kill herself. She yells like a man and threatens to kill as a man would. However, she returns to her female role as she dropped to the ground and cried over Tony, not doing anything to confront his death or kill herself as Juliet had.