The nurse however is a rather uneducated and unmannered person, as she wants to see Juliet get married for the selfish reason of not wanting to die before she does get married and she doesn’t actually seem to care that much about who Juliet marries just so long as she does, Juliet however has a very high opinion of marriage and doesn’t believe she’s worth the honour of marriage ‘it is an honour I dream not of’. Where as the nurse treats it in a completely different way, ‘An honour!
Were not I thine only nurse, I would say thou hadst sucked wisdom from thy teat.’ Which is a rather inappropriate thing to say about a girl aged thirteen, She also seems to treat Juliet like her own daughter instead of her very rich employers daughter, ‘tis since the earthquake now eleven years, and she was weaned-I shall never forget it’. The nurse also seems to have a fairly casual view towards sexuality and sexual jokes, as she says once juliets older she will ‘fall’st upon thy face? Thou wilt fall backward when thou comest to age, wilt thou not Jule?’
The nurse comes across as a very loud, earthly and uneducated women, you can tell she’s uneducated as she speaks in prose most of the time ‘I’ll lay fourteen of my teeth – and yet, to my teen be it spoken, I have but four – she’s not fourteen. How long is it now to Lammas-tide?’
We find that the Friar and the Nurse are used well to move the plot of the play forward. They constantly rush everything in the play which adds excitement and curiosity to the play. They also seem to be the two who want everything to move along quickly without hesitations.
Shakespeare gives the play a lot of themes, and he explores these themes very well, for example, there is the class theme involved like the difference between the nurse and the friar and yet they have the same sort of relationship and the same sort of friendship with Romeo and Juliet. Another theme that is explored very well is Love as throughout Romeo and Juliet have very strong feelings for each other. There are also the themes of regret, sadness and sorrow as the friar regrets a lot of the decisions he’s made about marrying Romeo and Juliet. I would say that the main theme of the play is the rushing of it all, everything that takes place in this play happens over a very short amount of time and this is a very rushed and paced play, as you have the friar wanting to rush it along to see the outcome to whether or not he is found guilty of what he is doing ‘Saint Francis be my speed! How oft tonight have my old feet stumbled at graves!’ it looks as if he’ saying that he is tripping up on death’. Surely this would mean that he must not rush matters such as these and you can tell that something bad will eventually happen.
During this play there are many instances of hard acting, which is scenes that require a lot of thought to get right when being acted out, There’s the famous balcony moment between Romeo and Juliet which would also be difficult to act out and perform this scene would be difficult as the two characters are on different platforms and in a play that would be hard to rein act as they would have to make the view point just right in order for it to be done correctly.
The scene when they’re in the grave yard, and all of the people rush into the family tomb that would also be hard to act out they’d have to have a wall where you can only see it from front on to show some separation.
During the play you do gain lots and lots of conclusions and opinions as to who is to blame for the deaths of Romeo and Juliet. You end up asking yourself many questions as to who you think is responsible. This is a particularly odd play, but at the start it actually tells you what is going to happen although even though you know what is going to happen, it keeps you reading on as you must find out how it happened and what caused it, this is why I believe this is such a good book as it is one where you want to find out what happens.
If I were asked to put the ones who take the blame in order I would have the families of Romeo and Juliet at number four, as had they not been sworn enemies Romeo and Juliet could have been married and lived in peace, at number three I would blame the Nurse for getting so deeply involved and manipulating the life of Juliet, for example she was so eager to have Juliet married the nurse didn’t actually seem to mind that the boy that Juliet wanted to marry was from a family of which they were sworn enemies. At number two I would have placed the friar as I believe that he is one of the main culprits as he Is the one that made the decision of marrying the couple. Although at number one I would have put Romeo and Juliet as they were the ones that should have known that they couldn’t have had anything to with each other, but for the reason of love they still got involved with each other, this is why I believe they are the main reason for their deaths because they knew what they were doing was wrong but they still did it. Another reason for these two being the main reasons was because throughout at different times they were both very immature about the matter at hand, Romeo for example threatening to commit suicide at the thought of not being able to be with Juliet, all in all I believe these teenagers were very selfish about what they wanted and seemed to have no consideration for what effect these actions would have on others.
Overall I found the play very interesting and constantly kept me interested, I would definitely recommend this to people, the only problem I had with the play was it being written in old English which I had trouble to understand, but after a while I did get the hang of it and it began to make more sense, in all a very deep and meaningful play.