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.