® ENGLISH GCSE – ROMEO AND JULIET
The Nurse
® The Nurse’s main role is to act as a mother figure for Juliet. She clearly
knows more than Lady Capulet about Juliet as Lady Capulet doesn’t
even know her age. We can also see the Nurse messing around and
teasing Juliet during the play showing their close bond
® The Nurse is also a comedic character – she doesn’t know when to
stop talking and she continually interrupts herself
® It’s worth noting that at the beginning both Juliet and the nurse are
very close but slowly as the play progresses, starting from Act 2 Scene
5 when the Nurse plays a joke that isn’t funny for Juliet, they start to
fall apart as the play also starts to fall apart as everyone, even the
closest people to her start to turn away from her
QUALITIES:
Comedic:
® The nurse is used by Shakespeare to relax the audience and add a
comedic element to the play to add a new dynamic. The nurse
speaks in prose to reflect her lack of education and her low status.
The use of prose could also be used to mark her reckless and never-
ending speeches. She also takes what people say literally for example
when Lady Capulet asks Juliet the rhetorical question ‘Thou knowest
my daughters of a pretty age’ then. The nurse interrupts and says she
can give Juliets’ age to the hour when Lady Capulet wasn’t even
talking about that she was just saying Juliet is of a marriageable age
and these examples of humour reflect the Nurse’s lower-class
upbringing
o ‘to climb up a bird’s nest’
o ‘It beats as it would fall in twenty pieces’
Mother Figure:
® The nurse does act as Juliets’ mother figure more than Lady Capulet,
but she is quite an irresponsible role model. She focusses purely on
Juliets’ sexual happiness ‘seek happy night to happy days’ and helps
Juliet to marry Romeo even though she knows nothing good can
come of it as she was present when Lady Capulet was talking to Juliet
about marrying County Paris. This shows she’s prepared to undercut
Lord Capulet showing the extent she loves Juliet almost as her own
but also her disrespect and cheek to go behind the back of the
people who gave her a job even if what she thinks is wrong and it
defies the Elizabethan society at the time. The nurse clearly doesn’t
think about long term emotions and danger from the marriage either.
®
Copyright © 2022 Revision Guru | All rights reserved
The Nurse
® The Nurse’s main role is to act as a mother figure for Juliet. She clearly
knows more than Lady Capulet about Juliet as Lady Capulet doesn’t
even know her age. We can also see the Nurse messing around and
teasing Juliet during the play showing their close bond
® The Nurse is also a comedic character – she doesn’t know when to
stop talking and she continually interrupts herself
® It’s worth noting that at the beginning both Juliet and the nurse are
very close but slowly as the play progresses, starting from Act 2 Scene
5 when the Nurse plays a joke that isn’t funny for Juliet, they start to
fall apart as the play also starts to fall apart as everyone, even the
closest people to her start to turn away from her
QUALITIES:
Comedic:
® The nurse is used by Shakespeare to relax the audience and add a
comedic element to the play to add a new dynamic. The nurse
speaks in prose to reflect her lack of education and her low status.
The use of prose could also be used to mark her reckless and never-
ending speeches. She also takes what people say literally for example
when Lady Capulet asks Juliet the rhetorical question ‘Thou knowest
my daughters of a pretty age’ then. The nurse interrupts and says she
can give Juliets’ age to the hour when Lady Capulet wasn’t even
talking about that she was just saying Juliet is of a marriageable age
and these examples of humour reflect the Nurse’s lower-class
upbringing
o ‘to climb up a bird’s nest’
o ‘It beats as it would fall in twenty pieces’
Mother Figure:
® The nurse does act as Juliets’ mother figure more than Lady Capulet,
but she is quite an irresponsible role model. She focusses purely on
Juliets’ sexual happiness ‘seek happy night to happy days’ and helps
Juliet to marry Romeo even though she knows nothing good can
come of it as she was present when Lady Capulet was talking to Juliet
about marrying County Paris. This shows she’s prepared to undercut
Lord Capulet showing the extent she loves Juliet almost as her own
but also her disrespect and cheek to go behind the back of the
people who gave her a job even if what she thinks is wrong and it
defies the Elizabethan society at the time. The nurse clearly doesn’t
think about long term emotions and danger from the marriage either.
®
Copyright © 2022 Revision Guru | All rights reserved
