Mercutio seems to run parallel to the nurse at times during the play. This is because Mercutio is Romeo’s close companion and the Nurse is Juliet’s companion, and both of them are very entertaining to watch because they both contribute to the comical aspect of the play. Their humour is rather different to each other though, this is because Mercutio is intelligent and his humour is cleverly punned, for example Mercutio insults Romeo at the beginning of act 2 scene 4, because he says to Romeo, ‘That’s as much as to say, such as a case as yours constrains a man to bow in the hams.’ This is a pun that is sexually suggestive but Romeo plays with Mercutio and pretends that he meant it was to curtsy. Then Mercutio continues with this punning and cleverly crafted joking and says, ‘Thou hast most kindly hit it.’ This makes the audience more intrigued in watching the play because it is really humorous and it is this way because of Mercutio’s statements. The humour of the nurse is different because she does not intend to do it deliberately, and her comedy is not by words it is by actions, so her humour is more on stage by acting. In act 2 scene 4 Mercutio and the Nurse meet and the Nurse does not say much when she is being made fun of because she probably does not understand it. So therefore it is Mercutio, who with his word play makes the Nurse seem hilarious. Mercutio makes fun of the Nurse by calling her a ‘bawd’. Towards the end of the scene the Nurse agrees with a statement that Romeo makes and says ‘You say very well.’ The Mercutio puns on this and says, ‘Yea is the worst well? Very well, I faith; wisely, wisely.’ This type of punning was enjoyed immensely by the Elizabethan audience at that time and therefore would love Mercutio’s sense of humour, which made them pay more attention to the play. Then finally the last thing that Mercutio says to her would probably be acted out comically because it sounds as though he is making fun of her again because he repeats the last word several times. He says to her, ‘Farewell, ancient Lady; farewell, lady, lady, lady.’ The word ‘lady’ is repeated so it shows that he might be mocking her again.
The Nurse and Mercutio’s comedy may be very different but they both use crude sex to add to the comedy aspects of the play. The Nurse talks offensively about sex when she explains what her husband once said. He said to Juliet, ‘Thou wilt not fall backward, when thou hast more wilt, wilt thou not Jule?’ The majority of Mercutio’s comedy is mostly about crude sex. When he talks in this way, the less educated people amongst the Elizabethan audience were greatly amused to hear him speak like this because it was very entertaining. So the crude aspect of his humour is so that the less educated people of that society were able to enjoy the play as well. Also in today’s society, people find it entertaining when sex is talked about in such a crude manner. As soon as the matter of love comes into context Mercutio talks crudely about it. Examples of Mercutio talking like this is when he says, ‘And the demesnes that there adjacent lie’ ‘Till she had laid it, and conjured it down’. Mercutio uses a lot of sexual imagery when he talks about women and he uses nature to describe women’s genital. An example of this is when Mercutio talks about ‘Medlar’s apples’. Mercutio wants Romeo’s woman to have ‘Medar’s apples’ and so he says ‘O that she were an open-arse and thou a Poperin pear.’ At this stage Mercutio does not know that Romeo has met Juliet and is romantically in love with her and the fact that his love is pure because he calls Juliet a ‘winged messenger’ ‘dear saint’. The language that is used between Romeo and Juliet includes a lot of religious imagery and Mercutio on the other hand uses sexual imagery to describe the woman he wants Romeo to be with. Also, when Mercutio talks about sex, the audience enjoy it because on stage Mercutio could have possibly described some crude points by actions. An example of this is when Mercutio talks about his ‘tail’ which is sexually suggested, he could have done some crude actions to show the audience what he meant. Mercutio’s crude idea of sex is more appealing to watch, than to watch scenes about romantic love all the time. Mercutio’s character talks about the vulgarity of sex rather than the romantic side, because the romantic aspect contributes to the tragedy part of the play, so to make the audience understand romantic love, Shakespeare includes Mercutio’s crude idea of love so the audience will be able to appreciate the romantic love.
Mercutio adds humour to each scene that he is in so that the audience break from the tension of the play and relax. Consequently Mercutio helps in breaking this tension by following up a serious or romantic scene. For example Mercutio’s crude humour related to sex in act 2 scene 1 comes after a rather romantic scene (when Romeo and Juliet meet), so that the audience relax from the romance and take love light-heartedly. This is also the case with act 2 scene 4, because just before this scene was a serious meeting between the Friar and Romeo. Thus Mercutio is very important in the play for the purpose of lightening up the mood of the play. In act I scene 4, Mercutio makes his first appearance and at the beginning of the scene he talks crudely about sex again because he says, ‘prick love for pricking’. He means in this case that Romeo should fight back with sex by having more sex. After this crude humour Mercutio himself speaks intensely about Queen Mab.
This entire speech is fascinating; not only because of the depth and detail of it but also because Mercutio acts it out very dramatically as though he was involved. This is suggested because Romeo says at he end of the speech for Mercutio to stop talking about dreams. The audience get involved with this speech as well, because at the beginning of the play Mercutio’s humour extenuated this speech. Mercutio contributes to one of the themes of the play that is conflict, for example the conflict of light and dark. Mercutio’s conflict is his comedy and his seriousness. All the time Mercutio is on stage he adds comedy to the scene that he is in but the Queen Mab speech is not comical instead it is very serious. So in this way Mercutio adds to the conflict of the play.
Mercutio loves to pun with words and this seems to be really attractive to the audience and due to this Mercutio is very important in the play. He knows that he is brilliant with words and is funny because he says when he is punning with Romeo, ‘My wits faints’. Also Romeo indirectly tells the audience, by telling the Nurse what type of a person Mercutio is. Romeo says that Mercutio is, ‘One person that God hath made for himself to mar’. Romeo says that all Mercutio does is joke, pun and loves to hear himself talk. The audience is attracted to Mercutio for that reason, because they enjoy watching a person who jokes. Mercutio’s joking is shown the whole time he is on stage, for example when Mercutio wants to fight against Tybalt, Benvolio says, ‘By my head, here come the Capulets.’ Then Mercutio puns on this and says, ‘By my heel, I care not.’
Mercutio’s character loves to fight. He loves to fight with words comically, he enjoys fighting with love and he enjoys fighting physically. However all these types of fights that he participates in are not at all violent instead they contribute to the comedy aspect of the play. Mercutio tells Romeo to fight back with love because Mercutio tells Romeo, ‘If love be rough with you, be rough with love: Prick love for pricking’. This is suggested once again in a crude manner, because here Mercutio is telling Romeo to fight back with love, and the only way to do that is to have sex. So Mercutio’s comedy makes the audience interested in watching the rest of the play.
Romeo and Mercutio have a light-hearted wordplay fight when Romeo is happy because he has me Juliet. In this fight Mercutio instigates the puns. Once again this type of fight is light-hearted and not violent because of the puns he uses, and because it is not violent Mercutio bewilders the audience with his words. Hence when Mercutio encourages the fight with Tybalt, the audience expect it not to be serious. Also previously Mercutio talks about Tybalt being brave and courageous because Mercutio says, ‘He fights as you pricksong’. This statement means that Mercutio keeps to the ‘time’, ‘distance’ and ‘proportion’, so he fights as though he is singing by keeping to the notes. Therefore Mercutio would like to fight Tybalt for fun and not seriously. This is suggested when he calls Tybalt to fight, he says to him, ‘O calm, dishonourable vile submission! “Alla stocata” carries it away. Tybalt you rat-catcher, will walk?’ Here Mercutio is challenging the ‘rat-catcher’ to fight. The reason why he calls Tybalt this is because Mercutio calls him the ‘King of Cats’, showing that he is very energetic. Mercutio calls Tybalt “Alla stocata” in mocking style, so this tells the audience that Mercutio is not going to fight seriously, he is just going to fight for fun. This behaviour adds more excitement to the play.
At the time of Mercutio’s death, Benvolio and Romeo ask him if he is fine, in reply to this Mercutio says, ‘Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch’, this is a pun because Mercutio calls Tybalt the ‘King of Cats’ and he is only ‘scratched’ by him, suggesting that he is hurt by Tybalt. The audience are shocked to see that Mercutio is hurt because he is such an entertaining character. He puns several times on this occasion as well, for example he says the wound is, ‘T’ is not so deep as well, nor so wide as a church door, but ’t is enough, ’t will serve. Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man’. Mercutio’s death is marker of where the comical side of the play ends and the tragedy begins because after his death, Tybalt dies then finally Romeo and Juliet die. The audience are able to pay more attention and concentrate more on the tragedy of the play due to all the jesting that Mercutio adds to the play. The comedy of the play dies with Mercutio; this is because even the Nurse, who runs parallel to Mercutio because they both add humour to the play, becomes serious because she tells Juliet to marry Paris. Shakespeare probably took Mercutio off because he became too important to the play and was taking the attention off Romeo and Juliet because the audience were immensely amused by his performance.