Nurse - C

• • Juliet's mother provides her with minimal emotional support, often prioritising material gains over her daughter's happiness, like in her arranged marriage to Paris for example
  • The Nurse, fulfils this role in the absence of Juliet's mother
• • Aristocratic Elizabethans would have their children raised by wet nurses, who would breastfeed them in place of their mothers and nanny them. This is the relationship the Nurse has with Juliet; it is extremely maternal more so than the relationship Juliet has with her own mother.
• "how my bones ache!"

  • uses colloquial language in front of Juliet
  • Juliet uses, primarily, a very formal tone with her mother but with the nurse she is unfiltered and so is the nurse to her
  • This demonstrates that the nurse provides Juliet with an environment in which she is free to express her emotions because she expresses her own, unlike Juliet's mother
• "what lamb! What ladybird!"

  • The nurse is the main representation of the working class - she is inherently a symbol of this class of people during this era as she is its only representation
  • The nurse is often frivolous and melodramatic
  • This is one of her opening lines of the play and it establishes her, as a character to be excitable and rambling in her exclamative tone and language which has a sematic field of animals, connoting endearment
• "thou wast the prettiest babe, that I e'er nursed" - A1

  • fondly reminiscing about Juliet's infancy
  • shows her deep affection and emotional bond with Juliet since she raised her like her own child
  • deeply entangled in Juliets life
  • acts as a maternal figure for Juliet
  • emotional investment becomes crucial as the story unfolds and she tries to guide Juliet - sometimes poorly- through love and loss