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| Juliet And Her Nurse: Henry Perronet Briggs. Public Domain |
Today’s characters have names starting with N. They aren’t the lead characters in their plays, but are interesting anyway!
N is for Nerissa. Nerissa is the gentlewoman who serves Portia, the young woman who marries Bassanio in The Merchant Of Venice and rescues Antonio, who was in danger of having a pound of flesh taken from him. Nerissa isn’t just a standard nameless servant. Like Charmian and Iras(Antony and Cleopatra), Maria(Twelfth Night) and Margaret and Ursula(Much Ado About Nothing), she has more of a role to play. Nerissa supports her mistress and joins her in disguising as a man to go to court, with Portia as a lawyer and Nerissa as a law clerk. She has agreed to marry Gratiano, one of Antonio’s friends. She hears the idiot swear he would rather have her dead than Antonio lose his case, and squeezes out of him the ring she gave him as herself. In the last scene she yells at him, but we know he is going to pay for it for the rest of their lives...
The Nurse from Romeo And Juliet is a character whose actual name we never learn, though we do know she had a daughter called Susan, now dead. Nurse starts the play with some crude comments, remembering when her husband made a joke about little Juliet falling on her face, but she would fall on her back when she was older and smarter, ha ha.
There is no question that the Nurse loves Juliet dearly, and gives her support in marrying Romeo. However, I can’t help thinking she likes the romance of her little girl falling in love and getting married. She doesn’t really care who it is.
The day after the Capulet party where the young lovers meet, the Nurse goes out to find Romeo to make arrangements for the wedding. Having successfully done that, she returns to the Capulet house, teasing Juliet before telling her the good news.
But here is the thing, and the reason why I think the Nurse doesn’t really care who Juliet marries. When Romeo has killed Tybalt and the lovers have had their wedding night, Lord Capulet has decided it might cheer up his daughter if she marries Paris, a young man who wanted to marry her early in the play. Juliet gets upset instead, not only because she loves Romeo, but because they are married, dammit, and he has gone into exile and she can’t get in touch with him.
And what does the Nurse say, knowing Juliet is Mrs Montague? That she, the Nurse, even organised it? She urges Juliet to marry that “lovely gentleman” Paris. After all, when is she ever going to see Romeo again?
So, at the very time when Juliet needs support, her nurse abandons her. No doubt she thinks it’s for the best, but still, she has abandoned her girl. I do wonder what she feels after the play is over and Juliet's dead?
In the Baz Luhrmann modern dress film, with Leonardo Di Caprio and Claire Danes, the Nurse was played as a Latina by British actress Miriam Margolyes.
In West Side Story, the musical inspired by Romeo And Juliet, the Nurse character is Maria’s(Juliet’s) brother’s fiancée, Anita, who leads a group of Puerto Rican girls in the lively song and dance America.
A very different interpretation!
See you Monday for O Is For Oberon and Olivia!
9 comments:
I always forget about Nerissa in The Merchant of Venice (another play we studied in school), even though I remember Gratiano. There is no accounting for human brains.
I know West Side Story way better than Romeo and Juliet because we put on a production of it at school. So much fun. Had to go from being a Jet's girl to a Shark's girl in a very quick change at one point 😂.
Tasha
Tasha's Thinkings: YouTube - What They Don't Tell You (and free fiction)
Nurse is a very pragmatic, down-to-earth sort of woman.
Nurse is a servant and a woman and I think she believes that everything will go more smoothly if you just do what you're told. She obeys Juliet's orders, until the orders of Juliet's parents override them, and then... Don't argue, just do what you're told. What's the point of fighting it? Not that she's meek and mousy - she makes many an impertinent comment - but she's not rebellious and knows what you have to do to get by. That's my take. And you're right, that's not what Juliet needs in her moment of crisis.
I don't know "Merchant of Venice" so well. I'd forgotten all about Nerissa.
N is for Nature
I played Nurse once in a school play, but it was an abridged version... I wonder if anyone has ever told the story from her point of view?...
The Multicolored Diary
Nice visiting your blog again this year :) hope alls well... i have not seen or read these plays but have read the abridged versions of the stories .
Jayashree writes
I just love The Merchant of Venice -- there's just something there that calls to me.
Ronel visiting for the A-Z Challenge My Languishing TBR: N
Hi Tasha! It must have been great fun to do West Side Story and be in both gangs. I take it you are a good dancer, because that is a dance show.
Hi Debra! Yes, very pragmatic.
Hi Anne! Good point. I can imagine her having to explain when the parents find out about Romeo and Juliet. “ What? You helped those two get married?”
I can’t help wondering what Friar Laurence would have said if asked to marry Juliet and Paris. No wonder he went for that elaborate plan.
Hi Jayashree! Welcome back to my blog. Nice to see you again.
Hi Ronel! Not sure “love” would be my word for Merchant of Venice, but I have seen some very good productions both on stage and on TV. Laurence Olivier as Shylock and his wife Joan Plowright as Portia. On stage, I did love the version I saw up in Tel Aviv, directed by a Royal Shakespeare Company director and in Hebrew. It was hilarious! You wouldn’t think that would be possible, would you?
Hi Zalka! Wow, you have played the role! I don’t see why you wouldn’t be able to write a story from her viewpoint. Someone even wrote one from the viewpoint of Rosaline, the woman Romeo follows to the party. She falls for Mercutio, whom she saves with magic. She helps the young lovers escape - and bronzes Tybalt’s head to put 9n the mantelpiece!
Hi Zalka! Wow, you have played the role! I don’t see why you wouldn’t be able to write a story from her viewpoint. Someone even wrote one from the viewpoint of Rosaline, the woman Romeo follows to the party. She falls for Mercutio, whom she saves with magic. She helps the young lovers escape - and bronzes Tybalt’s head to put on the mantelpiece!
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