Thursday 9 February 2017

In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, what are some puns said by the Nurse in Act I?

In Act 1,
Scene 3, onethe nurse speaks is found in the line the Nurse quotes her husband as saying towhen
she was a toddler, "'Yea,' quoth he, 'dost thou fall upon thy face? Thou wilt fall backward
when thou has more wit." The pun is a sexual innuendo making a double meaning of the phrase
"fall backward." Fall backward can literally refer to
falling, as baby Juliet just did, or it can be interpreted with sexual
connotations.

A second pun can be found in the line referring to the bruise
on baby Juliet's face after falling, "a parlous knock," meaning a "perilous
knock." The term knock can refer to a hit or blow, but it can
also have sexual connotations that the slang term "knocked up" comes
from.

A third pun can be found in Nurse's response to 's advice that Juliet
open herself up to getting to know : "by having him, making yourself no less," Nurse
responds with, "No less! nay, bigger; women grow by men." The pun is a play on the
word grow. Lady Capulet is using
less as afor Juliet getting to know Paris, but Nurse uses the paraodx with
grow as a pun with sexual reference. She is using grow
to refer to growing in pregnancy.

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