The Nurse and Lady Capulet

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supposed to have their feeling consulted and thought about as long as they married a rich man. However, the Nurse pursues Romeo for the good of Juliet showing her mother like figure.

o Juliet is betrayed by the Nurse

CONTEXT – LC and Lord C are forcing Juliet to marry Paris and the Nurse does nothing to help Juliet.

- Structural point – The Nurses responses become much more resonant of LC’s due to their length; they used to be long and repetitive, whereas now there short, dismissive much like LC. We see the Nurse as less of a mother figure here as the short senses create a sense of a superficial relationship. There is less of a contrast so it seems the Nurse is no-more of o mother than LC

- ‘Climb a bird’s nest’ – This is an example of the Nurses comical attitude to relationships as it is a reference to sex. This is an example of how the Nurse teases Juliet in a friendly way. The fact this kind of comedy compels us to like the Nurse, makes the betrayal have all the more effect reducing our visions of the Nurse being a mother figure. The light hearted optimism soon changes to a pessimistic view where the Nurse says ‘If it’s not better, your first marriage is over’. This destroys all hope for Juliet as Juliet only had the Nurse for support. The Nurse provides no solution

‘Say your serious things at lunch with your gossiping friends.’ – This is the crackdown by Lord C on the Nurse. This phrase shows that the Nurse is not part of the family as it says she should go to see her friends which highlights the fact the Nurse doesn’t belong there. The word serious has an element of sarcasm as it is an oxymoron to gossiping as gossiping is the talking of the unproven and therefore it is not viable information which implies the Nurses opinions are not viable in the conservation. There are two different views which one could take on this. One is the Nurse is cowardly and loses her protective mother image as she goes into submission. However, this may be for Juliet’s sake as she accepts the relationship is not possible and wants to remove Juliet from any consequences. The other is the Nurse doesn’t actually understand Juliet passionate deep love, as she is very earthy and has a short term dirty minded way of looking at love and gives in to Lord C as a result as she does not believe it will affect Juliet too much