Mercutio characterisation

• He is related to the prince and Paris. despite his significant lineage, Mercutio often functions as little more than Romeo's comic sidekick in much the same role as the nurse for Juliet
• Just like the nurse a a lot of Mercutio's dialogue revolves around sexual innuendo and bawdy humour.
• Shakespeare uses Mercutio to establish a view of masculinity as being a mixture of aggression and overt sexualisation
• Mercutio offers a heavily sexualised view of love in contrast to Romeo's pure and biblical view of love
• Mercutio is presented as aggressive and sex obsessed, he ca also be been as a foil to Romeo. Shakespeare uses Mercutio to emphasise the character traits of Romeo.
• His long speech about queen mag reveals a lot about his character.
• The speech begins like a fairy tale with innocent images made of 'an empty hazel-nut'. This story begins with a light heated, fairytale like humour, however as the story unfolds the images get more sinister. There is a frenzied chaos to the speech, and the shift from playful to sinister imagery symbolises the turmoil and chaos that is so key to the character of Mercutio. This speech warns us that Mercutio is more than just comic relief he trouble.
• When Mercutio speaks in prose

  Shakespeare is using prose to mirror Mercutio's character: just like prose, he is uncontrolled and follows no rules or regulations.
• his early exit from the play lead to tragic elements of the play to build to the eventual deaths of Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare removes the jokers because the need for comic relief has passed
• When Mercutio dies, Romeo is overcome with murderous rage. This reaction that the audience sees from Romeo illustrates the extent of love that Romeo had for Mercutio. The only time the audience sees a similar reaction is Romeo’s reaction to the death of Juliet. 
• Mercutio is hyper masculine
• Romeo’s bond with Mercutio and Benvolio echoes the homosociality typical of Elizabethan England. The intimacy between men we often reenforced through theatre. All players were men, therefore Romeo’s friendship in the text not only alludes the Elizabethan gender rules but also homosociality