The Nurse

[Shakey1_2_3]

I need to do a character study of the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet. Some help would really be appreciated. Any ideas are welcome whether it is to do with her dramatic function or whether she conorms to the gender stereotypes that existed in Elizabethan Times.
Thankyou!

[Charles Darnay]

The nurse is an intersting and dirty character

Following her path, she became an elderly woman who took to a life without sex. So when Juliet begins telling her about Romeo, she continuously presses the young girl for alll the dirty details and becomes really excited over them.

My belief is that this was done to show the impurity of those who followed such a "high moral" path.

[Scheherazade]

Following her path, she became an elderly woman who took to a life without sex. So when Juliet begins telling her about Romeo, she continuously presses the young girl for alll the dirty details and becomes really excited over them. I am not sure this analysis of the Nurse is entirely accurate. Could refer to the passages where 'she presses [Juliet] for dirty details'?

I think the Nurse has a more practical and somewhat realistic idea of love, compared to Juliet's idealistic one. It is true that the Nurse provides some kind of comic relief with her sentimentality but she is very fond of Juliet (whom she nursed and looked after since Juliet was a baby). She does not hesitate to risk her position by acting as a go-between Juliet and Romeo and it is very clear that she wants Juliet to be happy by marrying a good husband.

It is easy to see that she is not a very refined woman; she talks too much, digresses and looks at things from a practical point of view. In these aspects, she might conform to the gender stereotypes if the times; however, overall, I believe, her devotion to Juliet is admirable.

[Petrarch's Love]

Following her path, she became an elderly woman who took to a life without sex. So when Juliet begins telling her about Romeo, she continuously presses the young girl for alll the dirty details and becomes really excited over them.

My belief is that this was done to show the impurity of those who followed such a "high moral" path.


This is an impossible reading, because the nurse very clearly has not led a life without sex. There is reference to the nurse's husband in her first very long speech to Juliet's mother in the play. Not to mention, she was Juliet's wet nurse, meaning that she had to have had children herself, enabling her to keep her milk flowing for the young Capulet. She is, indeed, and earthy character in the play, and in Elizabethean terms she is a stereotypical "gossip," a term used to refer to women in general (though usually common women, not aristocrats), and especially talkative ones (where we get our modern sense of the word). Yes, she's overtalkative, nosy, and the reason the balcony scene has to come to an end, but she's also the person who has really been a mother figure to Juliet. After all, Juliet's real mother can't even remember her daughter's age and has to get the nurse to tell her!

[Anthony Furze]

The Nurse is a snake in the grass. After all she lets Juliet down at a crucial moment in the play, abandoning Romeo in favour of Paris.That point in the play is moving,and is the herald of Juliets growing independence.
The Nurse is very easily fooled by appearances and not that loyal really.

[jpagan09]

In many Shakespeare tragedies, there are certain elements that pull everything together. Other elements come into play in certain events. The nurse represents comic relief in this case. Comic relief is a scene or speech that is meant to amuse us when ever there is a bad, dull, or sad even within the play. Good luck!

[Anthony Furze]

Good point about comic relief.The play is a tragedy and the Nurses character offered a balance with some of the more tragic aspects of the play.
In Shakespeares time she would have been played by a boy or man. This, along with her ribald and bawdy humour made her easily identifiable to the more common elements of the Elizabethan audience.
She also takes out some of the over romantic bias of the play-reminds us of the more physical side of love-along with Mercutio.
So in many ways she acts as a counter balance to other characters.