Courtesy of Alvin Lin. Used with permission. Human Barriers in Renoir and Coppola

Artists, especially storytellers, often explore the nature of humanity and the ways that we attempt to elevate ourselves from the level of animals. Humans attempt to differentiate themselves from each other by establishing barriers and distinctions amongst themselves. This topic has been consistently returned to by artists for two main reasons. First, our world is so full of human barriers that all art wishing to capture some aspect of life must invariably include some of these barriers. Secondly, and more importantly to this paper, there is enormous potential for the artist to provide judgment on these barriers and use them to create interesting and relevant stories. Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is a classic example of a story driven by human imposed barriers. This story has as its fundamental conflict feuding between the Montagues and the Capulets. This barrier between the families is entirely fictional, though, so the audience easily sees this barrier as unnecessary. Instead, the audience sympathizes with the two lovers, whose predicament they can more easily understand.