Thread by @GCSE_Macbeth

#SummerOfJuliet

Act 1 Sc 3

The Meaning Of Weaning.

I'm always interested when Shakespeare lingers over a character or speech that could just as easily have been left out. The Nurse's "weaning" speech seems like one of these.

So what's going on here?

1/

Shakespeare uses breastfeeding as a way to create intimacy between the Nurse and Juliet. At the moment of her weaning, Lord and Lady C were absent: "then at "Mantua".

The Nurse seems proud of this, later reiterating that she is J's "only nurse" (l.68).

2/

The Mantua detail is significant: wet-nursing was standard among families of status in Shakespeare's time, so by itself I can't read it as an indictment of parental absence. So it's interesting that Sh. creates a more definite asbence by placing J's parents elsewhere.

3/

What does weaning symbolise? The moment when a chid is no longer physically dependent on the parent. It's a very specific choice to have N count J's age from her weaning instead of her birth: her personhood within the play begins with a move away from parental figures.

4/

It also coincides, of course, with the moment when Lady C is determined to give Juliet away permanently to a husband (Paris). Ironically, her daughter is about to take a bigger step outside the bounds of family than she could ever anticipate.

5/

And I wonder if Shakespeare is playing to the parents in the crowd?

By juxtaposing Juliet's new maturity with her infancy, what parent wouldn't watch and feel how quickly the time has passed since their own children weaned or took their first steps?

6/

It's a classic Shakespearean move of engaging us with "real" characters. This is a family in a Capital T Tragedy but it's a real family, with in-jokes and memories and intimacy.

7/

Two other threads I want to pull on, tenuous though they may be.

First: between the weaning, J's "then have my lips" bit and the poison at the end, there's something about Juliet's mouth being established here. I'll be keeping a close eye on all mouth imagery.

8/

Secondly...and this is purely a hunch because my English senses are tingling.

I wonder if Juliet's weaning is standing in for something more spiritual, or sacramental? We're in Catholic Italy now, not turbulent England. Catholics, eucharists... I don't know.

9/9