The role of women

Within the play, Romeo and Juliet, there are 3 main women characters: Juliet, Nurse and Lady Capulet. However, there are many more male main characters: Romeo, Mercutio, Capulet, Tybalt, Benvolio, County Paris, Friar Lawrence and Prince Escalus. This shows that the women’s voice in this play is not valued by Shakespeare. In addition, the topics discussed by both male and female characters are worlds apart. For example, the men discuss things such as war, love, sex, partying, fighting, honour, sports, food, peace and death. However the women within the story discuss love, marriage, and gossip. Shakespeare portrays women to only value being wives and gossipers, the Nurse says of women, “No less! Nay, bigger: women grow by men.” (Act 1, Scene 3, 99). Women are also portrayed as owned by men. Capulet shows this by offering all of the abled women to men, “Welcome gentlemen! Ladies that have their toes unplagu’d with corns will walk a bout with you.” (Act 1, Scene 5, 8-9). Imagery is used as a technique to portray women, in particular ‘women grow by men’ metaphorically relates women as a smaller person without a man.