Juliet’s anger at the Nurse’s criticism of Romeo shows her loyalty to Romeo, and she quickly overcomes her initial reaction to Tybalt’s death, showing that true love conquers all. Juliet exclaims, “blistered be thy tongue” to the Nurse. With these words, she effectively forgives Romeo, and the strong language she uses are in stark contrast with sweet-tongued Juliet that we have come to know. Again the Nurse’s fantastic ability to be incredibly insensitive shines through in this scene. Being close to Juliet, she should realise that Juliet’s feelings and emotions would be akin to a roller coaster ride at this point in time, and that Juliet needs support and stability. Instead, the Nurse groans about her woes and grief’s, oblivious to the fact that Juliet has lost the two most important men in her life in the same day. One to banishment, and one to death. The Nurse does not recognize the depth of Juliet’s feeling for Romeo, and is very self-centred in times of crisis.
Act 3 scene 3 finds Romeo lying on the floor of Friar Lawrence’s cell, weeping in an agony of despair. The Nurse enters interrupting a conversation between the good Friar and our distraught protagonist; Romeo. She has come to tell Romeo of Juliet’s dismay at the news, and Romeo, again blames himself for these bleak happenings.
When the Nurse first enters the cell, and sees Romeo on the floor crying, she immediately warms to him, and she is suddenly a very different Nurse from the Nurse who was showering curses on him only moments ago. To the Nurse it was touching to see Romeo “Blubbering and weeping, and weeping and blubbering” just as Juliet was when she left her. However, the Nurse does seem to enjoy trauma, and delights in Romeo’s distress at her ill tidings. Friar Lawrence’s long, calm speech slows down the pace of the action in this scene, and his logical words succeed in calming Romeo into a more rational state of mind. The Nurse is visibly very impressed with the Friars ‘gift of the gab’, she goes ecstatic at his speech to Romeo, “to hear good counsel...I would stay”. This only serves to accentuate how uneducated she really is, and she is used in this scene to again lighten the sombre mood, and cheer up the audience. The Nurse proves useful in this scene, as she prevents Romeo from committing suicide, knowing full well that if he did so, Juliet would follow suit. She loves Juliet too much to allow this to happen. It is ironic that now she saves both their lives, but later on is powerless to stop them. The Nurse ends the scene running to tell Juliet that Romeo is coming, and gives Romeo the ring that Juliet has sent as a pledge of love. Yet again she acts as messenger between the two lovers even in these troublesome times.
At dawn, after their first night as husband and wife, Romeo and Juliet are saying farewell to each other, though Juliet is begging Romeo to stay longer, when the Nurse rushes in with news: "Your lady mother is coming to your chamber: The day is broke; be wary, look about" .The Nurse acts as warning of Lady Capulet’s impending arrival, and brings an unwelcome aspect of realism to the lovers. She immediately rushes out again, and then later returns at the side of Capulet. Capulet, in an effort to lighten the mood of the Capulet household, following the death if Tybalt, gives Paris permission to marry his daughter, and as we see, is willing to force her to do so against her will. When Capulet threatens and insults Juliet for refusing to marry Paris, the Nurse tries to intervene. She says, her so”, but her courage earns her nothing but insults, which seems unfair as she only has Juliet’s best interests at heart. For Juliet’s sake, she speaks out boldly and brazenly against her master, and is daring to speak so openly against him. After Juliet's mother and father have left, Juliet turns to the Nurse for advice, saying . However, the Nurse tells Juliet that she feels it would be best for Juliet to marry Paris, since Romeo is as good as dead and Paris is better looking anyway. Juliet is outraged, but covers it up in order to buy some time. With a bit of hidden sarcasm, Juliet tells the Nurse that she has been a great comfort. At the beginning of the scene, the Nurse saves Romeo by warning of Lady Capulet, but now she much prefers Paris to Romeo “Romeo’s a dishclout to him”, and suggests that Juliet should marry Paris. Ironically, it was her who made the marriage to Romeo possible, and we see that the Nurse is very simple-minded, and agrees with whatever happens to be the opinion of the moment.
It is at this point in the play that the Nurse fails Juliet’s trust, and is no longer her close friend and intimate. The advice that the Nurse gives Juliet is very tactless. She says that Juliet should make the best of things, keep quiet about Romeo and marry Paris, against underestimating the love that Romeo and Juliet share. Juliet would rather die than marry any man but Romeo. The advice is well-intentional, and the Nurse seems to be trying to comfort and please her mistress, but Juliet is quietly furious and calls her a “wicked fiend”, when she has gone. This marks the severing of Juliet’s esteem and friendship for her Nurse. The Nurse has failed to recognise how much Juliet has changed, and thinks that her usual habit of following the current prevailing opinion constitutes good advice. The Nurse has not realised that Juliet is not the impressionable young girl she once was, this is due to her affection for Juliet and her wish to be her mother and involved in her life for the rest of her life. However, her interference in Juliet’s life, however well meant was not needed or wanted anymore. This is exactly the same as in the case of Romeo and Mercutio. The Nurse and Mercutio both underestimate their friend’s feelings, and this has now estranged them from their friends. At this point in the play, aside from the Friar, Romeo and Juliet are now completely alone, with no close ones to help them through, or contact each other. Only the Friar remained faithful and we see how in the end, he too failed them in the tomb at their greatest hour of need. Juliet openly lies to the Nurse that she is going to confession, implying that she will marry Paris. The Nurse is pleased with her and hurries to deliver the message to Lady Capulet, but stupid to think that everything is alright, and that Juliet has just changed her mind.
Juliet now goes to the Friar, agrees to his plan and takes the poison he gives her, for use on the day of her marriage to Paris.
Despite the fact that Juliet hasn’t agreed to marry Paris, her father proceeds to make arrangements for the wedding feast, inviting guests, hiring cooks, and grumbling about what a spoiled brat Juliet is. The Nurse is present but says only “Ay forsooth”, when Capulet asks if Juliet has gone to see Friar Lawrence, and then when Juliet shows up, “See where she comes from shrift with merry look”. The Nurse no longer provides comedy to the play since she lost Juliet’s trust. Instead, in this scene, it is Capulet’s amusing exchange with the servant that forms an effective contrast after the atmosphere of fear and haste in the previous scene.
A little later, Juliet, pretending to obey her father, says that she is going to choose jewellery and clothes for the wedding, taking the Nurse with her, keeping up the charade of normality.
On the morning that Juliet is supposed to marry Paris, the Nurse is sent to wake her up. From the moment she enters the room, the Nurse starts calling to Juliet with affectionate pet-names that no longer seem genuine. “Mistress, what mistress! Juliet! Fast, I warrant her…Why lamb, why lad! Fie you slug a bed.” She jokes about what Paris will do with her in her bed, but Juliet still does not wake up, so she draws the curtains and discovers that Juliet is dead. Upon making this discovery, the Nurse calls for “aqua vitae”, which is brandy, although ironically, the words translate literally as water of life. The Nurse calls for Lady Capulet and her husband, who are followed by Paris and Friar Lawrence. Amidst all the grieving, the Nurse’s is the simplest and most exaggerated, just a long wail in words beginning, “O woe, woeful, woeful, woeful day!”, and ending in “O woe, woeful, woeful, woeful day!” The way the Nurse curses the day for bringing this sad scene is reminiscent of the way the lovers cursed the daytime for keeping them apart. Her uses of imagery are therefore appropriate here when she says, “Never was seen so black a day as this”. The Friar mentions rosemary, associated with remembrance and death, but mentioned by the Nurse earlier in the play as Juliet’s favourite flower.
In Act 5 Scene 3, at the tomb of the Capulet’s, Prince Escalus orders Friar Lawrence to recount all he knows of the tragic events. The Friar, under moral duress does so, and coming to the end of his story says, “All this I know…Her Nurse is privy”. The Friar’s point is that the Nurse, who is not present, can corroborate his assertion that Romeo and Juliet were married.
As aforementioned, the Nurse was designated a specific role in this play by Shakespeare. She provides humour, a mother- figure, and creates tension in the play, so we cannot simply dismiss her as meddling old fool. It is regrettable, that she lost Juliet’s trust, but she was not entirely to blame for this; throughout the play, in everything she said and did, she only had Juliet’s best interests at heart. She was only trying to help, and it hurt her more than she let on to lose Juliet’s love and confidence in her. It was beyond her capabilities to understand deep things, such as true love, the fact that Juliet was Juliet was not going to be her little girl for ever, and whilst this does not fully excuse her, it does not make her blameless. One should not use intellectual limitations as an excuse for stupidity. However, above all her faults the Nurse was the perfect soul mate for Juliet Capulet.