What is the Point in Learning Shakespeare?

Imagine two families who have hated each other for generations. Their children are taught never to trust anyone from the opposing family. Neighbors take sides. Arguments turn into fights. Everyone knows who the enemy is. But there’s one problem.

Nobody seems to remember why the families started fighting in the first place.

Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? Yet this is the central conflict in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, written more than 400 years ago.

And it’s also remarkably similar to the conflict in Klaus, a 2019 animated Christmas movie about two families whose hatred has become a way of life.

One story ends in tragedy. The other moves toward reconciliation.

How can two stories built around such similar conflicts end so differently?

And more importantly, what does understanding these stories have to do with your life today?

Let’s explore how this works in the real world.

Try it yourself

The Feud: A Story About Choices and Consequences

Two families. One ancient rivalry. Nobody remembers how it started. You’ve grown up hearing that the other family is your enemy. But what happens when you begin questioning everything you’ve been taught?

In this interactive story, you’ll make three decisions that influence what happens next. Some choices may escalate the conflict. Others may create opportunities for reconciliation. And sometimes, even good intentions have unexpected consequences.

Your challenge: Can you break a feud that began long before you were born?

Make your choices carefully. At the end, discover how your story connects to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and the animated film Klaus.

What’s Going On?

Two Families. One Feud. No Clear Beginning.

In William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the Montagues and Capulets are two prominent families living in Verona, Italy. They despise one another. Their servants fight in the streets, relatives defend the family name, and even ordinary encounters can become dangerous.

But…. Shakespeare never explains exactly what started the feud! The play’s opening prologue calls it an “ancient grudge.” By the time Romeo and Juliet meet, the conflict has become a tradition passed from one generation to the next. The families continue fighting without the audience ever learning why the rivalry began.

Four Hundred Years Later: Klaus

In the animated film Klaus (2019), the fictional town of Smeerensburg is divided between two rival families: the Ellingboes and the Krums. Their hostility has lasted for generations, shaping how everyone in town behaves. Children inherit their families’ prejudices, adults maintain old grudges, and cooperation is treated almost like betrayal.

Just like the Montagues and Capulets, these families have allowed their rivalry to become part of their identity. The feud has become more important than whatever originally caused it.

The Same Conflict, Two Different Stories

In Romeo and Juliet, two young people fall in love despite their families’ hatred. Their relationship becomes entangled in secrecy, violence, and tragic misunderstandings. The families finally reconcile, but only after devastating losses.

In Klaus, a reluctant postman named Jesper and a reclusive toymaker begin transforming their divided community through acts of generosity. Cooperation gradually challenges the traditions that have sustained the feud.

One story ends in tragedy. The other moves toward reconciliation. Both begin with inherited hostility, but their characters’ decisions lead to very different outcomes.

So Why Study Shakespeare?

Studying Shakespeare isn’t simply about memorizing old-fashioned language or identifying literary devices. It’s about understanding how stories work: how writers establish conflicts, develop characters, create consequences, and explore human behavior.

Once you recognize these storytelling patterns, you begin seeing them in modern movies, television, books, and video games. Stories separated by centuries can explore remarkably similar problems.

The important question isn’t just “What happened?” It’s “Why did the writer choose to make it happen that way?”

Let’s Compare the Stories

Same Beginning. Different Endings.

Both stories begin with families trapped in longstanding rivalries. Neither conflict can be resolved simply by identifying who started it.

But Shakespeare uses tragedy to expose the consequences of hatred, while Klaus uses generosity to demonstrate the possibility of change.

The difference isn’t the basic conflict. It’s how the writers develop and resolve it.

That’s one reason studying Shakespeare can make modern entertainment more interesting: you begin recognizing familiar storytelling structures and appreciating how different writers use them.

Why Does This Happen?

Conflict Makes Stories Interesting

Nearly every compelling story involves conflict. Characters want something, but obstacles prevent them from getting it. Those obstacles create tension, force decisions, and keep audiences interested.

In Romeo and Juliet, the obstacle is the feud between two families. In Klaus, the feud prevents an entire community from cooperating. Both stories use inherited hostility to create conflict, but their characters respond differently.

Why Do People Inherit Conflicts?

People often adopt the beliefs and loyalties of their families or communities before questioning them. A rivalry can continue because each generation feels obligated to defend the previous generation’s actions.

This creates a cycle: Old Grievance → Group Loyalty → Confrontation → Retaliation → New Grievance.

Each new confrontation provides another reason to continue fighting, even when the original disagreement has been forgotten. Writers use this pattern because audiences recognize how pride, loyalty, and mistrust can influence people’s decisions.

How Writers Change the Outcome

A story’s ending depends partly on how its characters respond to conflict. Shakespeare’s characters make decisions that intensify an already dangerous rivalry. In Klaus, acts of generosity gradually create opportunities for cooperation.

But neither outcome is automatic. Writers choose which decisions characters make, what consequences follow, and what message the audience takes away.

Why Does This Matter Today?

Consider How to Train Your Dragon. Hiccup grows up believing dragons are enemies because his community has always treated them that way. When his personal experiences challenge that belief, he begins questioning the conflict he inherited.

The circumstances differ from Romeo and Juliet and Klaus, but the underlying question is familiar:

Should people continue a conflict simply because previous generations did?

Recognizing these recurring themes helps students understand how modern storytellers use familiar ideas to create new stories.

Explore the pattern

So When Would You Actually Use This?

Why Shakespeare Specifically?

Shakespeare didn’t invent stories about love, jealousy, betrayal, revenge, or family rivalries. These themes existed long before he was born. What makes Shakespeare particularly important is how extensively his plays have influenced the stories that followed.

His works have been performed, translated, adapted, and reimagined for more than 400 years. Studying them provides a connection between earlier storytelling traditions and modern entertainment.

Shakespeare is a bridge between the stories of the past and the stories we enjoy today.

Before Shakespeare: Ancient Stories, Familiar Conflicts

Long before Shakespeare, writers explored forbidden love, family rivalries, revenge, and reconciliation.

In Ovid’s Pyramus and Thisbe (AD 8), two young lovers are forbidden from being together. They communicate secretly, arrange a meeting, and ultimately die because of a tragic misunderstanding. The similarities to Romeo and Juliet are striking.

Even earlier, Aeschylus’s Oresteia (458 BC) explored a family trapped in generations of betrayal and revenge. Each act of retaliation creates another grievance, until the cycle is finally challenged through a system of justice.

These stories demonstrate that the conflicts Shakespeare explored were already centuries old.

Shakespeare: Connecting the Past to the Future

Shakespeare didn’t invent forbidden love or inherited family conflict. He drew upon earlier storytelling traditions and adapted familiar ideas for audiences of his time.

His Romeo and Juliet (1590s) tells the story of two lovers whose families are locked in an ancient feud. Their secret relationship, combined with violence and misunderstandings, leads to tragedy.

Shakespeare’s version became enormously influential, inspiring adaptations and reinterpretations for generations.

Shakespeare wasn’t the beginning of these stories. He became an important bridge between the stories that came before him and those that followed.

After Shakespeare: Familiar Stories in New Settings

Centuries later, writers continued exploring similar conflicts.

West Side Story (1957) directly reimagines Romeo and Juliet, replacing Renaissance Verona with rival groups in New York City.

Klaus (2019) explores a comparable inherited feud between the Ellingboes and Krums. Unlike Shakespeare’s tragedy, however, the conflict moves toward reconciliation through generosity and cooperation.

How to Train Your Dragon (2010) presents another variation: Hiccup questions his community’s longstanding hostility toward dragons after discovering that what he’s been taught doesn’t match his experience.

These modern stories aren’t all direct adaptations of Shakespeare. Instead, they demonstrate how writers continue exploring familiar themes in different settings and with different outcomes.

The Bridge Between Past and Present

Consider how these stories connect across time:

Period	Story	Central conflict
458 BC	The Oresteia	Generations trapped in revenge
AD 8	Pyramus and Thisbe	Forbidden love and tragic misunderstanding
1590s	Romeo and Juliet	Forbidden love amid an inherited feud
1957	West Side Story	Rival groups and forbidden love
2010	How to Train Your Dragon	Questioning inherited hostility
2019	Klaus	Rival families overcoming generations of hatred

Some of these works have direct literary connections; others share themes without necessarily influencing one another.

The important point is that storytelling evolves, but many of the human conflicts that inspire stories remain recognizable.

Studying Shakespeare helps us understand an important part of that evolution. We can see how he adapted earlier traditions and how later writers adapted his work or explored similar themes.

Shakespeare is a bridge—not because every modern story comes from him, but because his influence helps connect centuries of storytelling.

So, What’s the Point?

Why Learn Shakespeare When We Have Modern Movies?

You might never need to quote Romeo and Juliet in everyday life. But you’ve probably encountered stories involving rival families, forbidden relationships, inherited hatred, or characters who challenge the beliefs of their communities.

These ideas didn’t begin with Shakespeare, and they certainly didn’t end with him.

In Romeo and Juliet, an inherited feud leads to tragedy. In Klaus, a similar conflict begins to dissolve through cooperation. And in West Side Story, Shakespeare’s original plot is reimagined for a different generation.

You don’t study Shakespeare simply to understand a writer who lived 400 years ago. You study him to see how stories from the ancient world influenced his work, how his work influenced later generations, and why familiar human conflicts continue appearing in the entertainment we enjoy today.

The Real Reason to Study Shakespeare

Studying Shakespeare provides more than an opportunity to analyze old-fashioned language. It helps us understand how stories are constructed, how writers influence one another, and how familiar themes evolve across centuries.

Shakespeare is particularly valuable because his works have become an important link between earlier literary traditions and modern storytelling.

You don’t study Shakespeare simply to understand a writer who lived 400 years ago. You study him to better understand how the stories of the past continue shaping the stories of today.