Analysis Of The Nurse In Romeo And Juliet

In a very simple manner the nurse in Romeo and Juliet is there purely to give some light relief from the rest of the play using sexual humour. However, if looked at in more detail many more roles of the nurse come into play than simply to make the audience laugh.

In Act 1 Scene 3 the nurse is portrayed in a very positive and light hearted manner particularly when she tells Juliet to 'seek happy nights to happy days ' it could be suggested that is simply a light hearted sexual reference put in the play by Shakespeare to amuse the uneducated groundlings at the front. The majority of the audience would have found this amusing as at the time the audience would be mainly male and probably drunk so they would have found the sexuality of the nurse …show more content…
This humour created by the nurse is mostly consistent throughout the play as later on in the play she makes it clear to Juliet that she 'shall bear the burden soon at night ' referring to juliet consummating the marriage which shows that the nurse 's humour is nearly always sexual which suggests that she is obsessed with sex but it would not be expected that a woman like the nurse would have sexual desires. This comic relief plays a very important role in the play to relieve the tension of audience so they are not constantly in tension throughout the play. In the film by Baz Luhrmann the nurse is a large, unattractive, old woman and in this scene she is dressed almost like a nun which further emphasises the …show more content…
The time reference in this quote indicates how much time the nurse has spent with Juliet, more so than her own mother which shows the audience that the nurse is the closed confidant for Juliet. Deeper analysis reveals a maternal aspect to the relationship, seen when the nurse tells Juliet that 'thou hast sucked wisdom from thy teat ' which demonstrates to the audience that the nurse was a wet nurse and she had breastfed Juliet, this is something that the mothers in the audience can relate to as they will have likely breastfed their children so they will see that the nurse is like a mother to Juliet which suggests the nurse has two roles to fulfill. These two roles break down later on in the play as when Romeo has been banished the nurse suggests Juliet 'married with the County ' which would be an immoral thing for Juliet to do as she cannot be married twice so the nurse has crossed a moral line meaning Juliet has to become more independent and make her own decisions which shows the neurs controls how Juliet has grown up which shows the nurse 's role in the play to be a character to measure other characters by for example it