Juliet & the Nurse

            In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the relationship between Juliet and her Nurse is one of the relationships that I found most interesting in the play. Throughout the entire play, the Nurse seems to support Juliet. In Act I, Scene IV, the Nurse tells Juliet before her father’s party to, “Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days.” While Juliet is at the party, she meets Romeo. It is the Nurse, who reveals to her that Romeo is the son of her family’s enemy but also it is the Nurse, who relays messages back and forth between Romeo and Juliet. She not only bonds with Juliet as her caretaker but also over the secret of her love for Romeo and eventually their marriage.

            The Nurse appears to be more of a mother to Juliet then Lady Capulet. In Act III, Scene V, after Juliet has had an argument with her father and he threatens to throw her out on the street, if she doesn’t marry Paris. Juliet turns to her mother for help. She asked, “O sweet my mother; cast me not away. Delay this marriage for a month, a week, or; if you do not, make the bridal bed in that dim monument where Tybalt lies.” Juliet is basically pleading to her mother in this scene for help. She is simply asking her mother to try to talk to her father so that the wedding to Paris is delayed but Juliet’s mother refuses to hear her. Lady Capulet tells Juliet, “Talk not to me, for I’ll not speak a word. Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee.” I feel at this point Lady Capulet abandons Juliet on the issue of her marrying Paris. Juliet is crying out for help in this scene when all goes wrong with her father and her mother chooses to turn a deaf ear to her.

            Juliet at this point turns to the one person she feels she can rely on, the Nurse. Juliet in a plea of desperation asks the Nurse for advice. She asked, “What sayst thou? Hast thou not a word of joy? Some comfort, nurse.” The Nurse I feel doesn’t give Juliet the advice Juliet wants to hear but the advice she feels Juliet needs to hear. She basically tells Juliet that she is better off marrying Paris because Romeo has after all killed her cousin, Tybalt and is banished. I don’t think that the Nurse really wants this for Juliet but she has just witness the argument between Juliet and her father. I think that because the Nurse has taken care of her, her entire life, she just wants what she thinks is best for her.  

Lady Grey, Queen Elizabeth

            One particular relationship I found interesting in Shakespeare’s “Richard III” was the relationship that Queen Elizabeth and Richard shared. In Act I, Scene I, Richard is having a conversation with his brother Clarence, who has been arrested and being sent to the tower. In this conversation Richard appears to be pointing the finger at Queen Elizabeth as the reason behind Clarence arrest. Clarence is trying to figure out why his brother, King Edward IV has sent him to the tower and Richard convinces him that Queen Elizabeth is behind it all. He states, “Tis not the King that sends you to the Tower. My Lady Grey his wife, Clarence, ‘tis she that tempers him to this extremity.” It is apparent that Richard harbors animosity toward Queen Elizabeth because he refers to her as “Lady Grey,” the name given to her from her previous marriage. Richard doesn’t even acknowledge Elizabeth as a Queen in the beginning of the play. Richard is degrading Elizabeth by stripping her of her title as Queen.

            In Act I, Scene III, Richard and Queen Elizabeth are going head to head in an argument where he again insults her title as Queen. He states, “The world is grown so bad that wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch. Since every Jack became a gentleman, there’s many a gentle person made a Jack.” In return Queen Elizabeth states, “Come, come, we know your meaning, brother Gloucester. You envy my advancement and my friends’. God grant that we never may have need of you.” In this Scene of the play Richard and Queen Elizabeth go back and forth in a disagreement. Richard points out in the scene that since Elizabeth has become Queen, people have become noble that are not really considered noble. Richard is accusing Elizabeth of trying to acquire a position of power by marrying his brother just to become Queen. Elizabeth on the other hand accuses Richard of being envious of her position of power.

            As the reader of Shakespeare’s, “Richard III” we are aware of Richard’s devious plans and we know that it is Richard, who is behind his brother, Clarence arrest. Richard is trying to turn his brothers against each other. He is simply putting the blame on Queen Elizabeth because of his pure dislike for her. He even goes as far as to accuse her of trying to do what he; himself is plotting, trying to acquire a position of power and control. Richard appears jealous of Elizabeth because she is in a powerful position. It is clearly understandable of why he wants to ruin her.

           

Richard III

            In Act I, Scene II, of Shakespeare’s “The Tragedy of Richard III,” the play begins with a long speech from Richard. Richard begins this speech on sort of a high note. He states, “Now is the winter of our discontent.” He explains how their discontent or bad times are ending and made glorious by his brother, King Edward IV. Richard repeats this idea that the bad times are over and the good times are ahead in his speech and then his tone quickly changes after he discusses how after war his brother is no longer mounting horses but instead as stated in lines 13-14, “He capers nimbly in a lady’s chamber to the lascivious pleasing of a lute.”  It is after these lines, I noticed a dramatic change in Richard’s tone. Richard begins to reveal some of his own insecurities about himself, compared to others. He expresses how he is “not made for sportive tricks.”  

He acknowledges the fact that he is unattractive because as he states, “am curtailed of this fair proportion, cheated of feature by dissembling nature, deformed, unfinished.” Richard doesn’t believe that a woman would love him or want to be with him because of the way he looks. He knows that he is not aesthetically pleasing which he blames on nature. He thinks of himself so unattractive that “dogs bark at him when he stops by them,” as he states in line 23.

Richard is unhappy with the way he looks and how others treat him because of his appearance. He feels like he has been cheated by nature because of his deformity. Instead of trying to fit in with everyone else, Richard chooses another fate for himself because he feels like he doesn’t fit into society. He states in lines 27-31, “since I cannot prove a lover to entertain these fair well-spoken days, I am determined to prove a villain and hate the idle pleasures of these days.” Richard chooses to become a bad guy because he doesn’t feels accepted because of physical attributes. He lays out evil plots to help him succeed in his goals of what he thinks will make him happy. Richard wants to be King.

He stated earlier in his speech how their winter is “made glorious summer by this son of York.” The son of York being Richard’s older brother, King Edward IV. Richard appears to be jealous of his brother, Edward especially his relationship with Queen Elizabeth. Richard talks about not being made for “sportive tricks” such as those of “lascivious pleasing in a lady’s chamber” which is something he believes his brother engages in. He later states in Act I, Scene I, in a conversation with his brother Clarence, who he has turned against Edward, that the King is ruled by women. Richard leads Clarence to believe that it is really the Queen Elizabeth, who has convinced her husband to send him to the tower. Richard seems not only to have ill feelings toward his brothers but also his brother wife, who he demeans by referring to her as Lady Grey, the name from her previous marriage.

Aaron & Tamora

            In Shakespeare’s, “Titus Andronicus” there is one particular relationship that interested me the most, the relationship between Tamora and Aaron the Moor. In Act II Scene I, Aaron is first introduced as Tamora’s lover. It is not until this point of the play that we know the role of Aaron in the play. In this particular act of the play Aaron is going on and on about Tamora. I find their relationship as one-sided because Aaron seems to be more invested in Tamora more so than she is into him. Throughout the play, there seems to be this underlying reason behind Aaron’s action that he could be doing all of his misdeeds for Tamora.

            It is believe in the play that Aaron’s character is just pure villainous and that he is just an all-around bad guy but his love for his son proves otherwise. Aaron is well aware of his wrong doings and is willing to admit them all to Lucius, if Lucius will only spare his son. Aaron’s love for his son appears to spurn from his love for Tamora because throughout the play Aaron has never had any real connection with Titus or his family other than Tamora. Titus captures Aaron along with Tamora and her sons at the beginning of the play but Aaron never really had a reason to seek any revenge on Titus. Why would Aaron want to cause such harm to Titus and his family? A reasonable explanation is to seek revenge for Tamora because Titus killed her son. Aaron seems to want to please Tamora by trying to hurt Titus. In Act V Scene I, Aaron even brags about the damage he has done to Titus and how when he told Tamora of his deed, she sounded please and rewarded him with twenty kisses.

            Tamora doesn’t appear as interested in Aaron as he is into her. In Act II Scene III, she refers to him as her love and tries to be intimate with him before they are discovered by Lavinia and  Bassianus. It is here in the play where Tamora feelings for Aaron is revealed but later in the play after she gives birth to his son in Act IV Scene II, she tells the nurse to bring the child to Aaron so that he can kill his own child. In this scene of the play, Tamora appears to care little for Aaron or his child because she wants the child dead unlike Aaron, who wants to make sure his son grows up into a man.

Titus Andronicus

            In Shakespeare’s play, “Titus Andronicus,” the character Titus appeared to resonate with me the most because he showed the most growth in the play. In the beginning of the play Titus, a Roman general stands firmly by his country and his newly crowd emperor so much that he slays one of his own sons because he goes against emperor, when the emperor announces he wants to marry Titus’s daughter, who is already promised to the emperor’s younger brother and Titus’s sons stand by their sister when they help her run-off with the emperor’s younger brother. One of the brothers, who decide to stay behind blocking the door so the others have time to escape, is slain by their very own father because Titus views their action as treasonous.

            It is at this point of the play that Titus appears as this very cold, stern Roman general, who values his country more than his own family. It is completely obvious that Titus is willing to sacrifice his own family for the sakes of Rome. Shakespeare makes this aware to the reader in the first act of the play because it is here, Titus is returning from battle to bury twenty-five of his own sons. Titus appears to show no remorse that he has lost twenty-five of us own children in battle but appears proud for having sons die in battle for their country.

            Near the end of the play after, Titus has had two more sons slain because they are frame for murdering the emperor’s younger brother; I start to see Titus grow as a character. I start to see Titus evolve into more of a caring father, who cares for the well-being of his children because before his sons are executed he is trick into cutting off his own hand in exchange for both of the lives of his sons. It is at this point in the play that my feelings for Titus change completely because no longer is he willing to sacrifice his children for the sake’s of Rome but he is willing to sacrifice himself for his children.

            At the end of the play, when he kills his only daughter because she has been raped, I still view Titus’s character as remorseful because he doesn’t want her to go through life carrying her shame. The idea of Titus killing his only daughter is viewed as unkind but I can understand the reason behind his action. Titus even goes as far as to ask the emperor was it well done for Virginius, a Roman centurion who also killed his raped daughter. The emperor agrees that it was well done because as long as the girl lives, she bares the shame of the rape and her father will feel sorrow for his daughter for the rest of her life. At this point in the play, I view Titus as more as a sympathetic father, who even tries to rationalize his reason for killing his daughter because of the questions he posed to the emperor about Virginius. It is also at this point that I see Titus character as fully evolved from the cold, stern Roman general to the caring, sympathetic father because Titus is no longer allowing his children to be killed as a sacrifice but he kills his own child out of mercy.