“If Love Be Rough With You, Be Rough With Love”
Comic Relief Characters in The Princess Bride and Romeo and Juliet
Even Shakespeare had a sense humor. From 1597 to the modern era, authors and playwrights have used humor through their supporting characters to help bring more color and life to their love stories. Comical sidekicks help develop the storyline and give the audience/reader a deeper understanding of the main characters. Their goal is to entertain or grab the attention of the audience in shocking ways. They can lighten up, what otherwise could be a serious or tragic story. The tales of Romeo and Juliet and The Princess Bride best incorporate humorous secondary characters to support the protagonists in a lively and entertaining manner as they deal with the main conflict at hand.
In the story of Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio integrates his sense of humor towards his sidekick, Romeo, to pump him up throughout the book. Mercutio is a Montague and one of Romeo’s good friends. He is more lively compared to Romeo and Benvolio. An example of this is right before the party at the Capulets. Romeo is unsure if he wants to go because he is upset that his previous lover, Rosaline, is about to become a nun, therefore, she can’t marry Romeo. Therefore, Romeo is being hesitant because he knows that if he goes to the party, he will probably find a new lover, which would mean that he would be cheating on Rosaline. He also doesn’t want there to be any trouble because they are Montagues, and they are about to attend a Capulet party. Mercutio sees Romeo is upset and decides to pump him up in a way that he would then want to go. He explains to Romeo that:
If love be rough with you, be rough with love.
Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down. —
Give me a case to put my visage in!
A visor for a visor. — What care I
What curious eye doth cote deformities?
Here are the beetle brows shall blush for me. (1.4 27–32)
Mercutio is saying that Romeo will have to go all out and try different things with love, so then love would have an effect on him later. Also, Mercutio believes that since they are wearing a mask, his true identity would be hidden. If somebody finds out that they are at the party, he shouldn’t care. He should just be focussing on having a good time. This is humorous because it is odd to think that Romeo would want to risk his life just to have a good time and meet some girls. It shows how Romeo is obsessed with love. Mercutio’s pep talk has an impact on the rest of the story as Romeo seems more confident when talking to girls, like Juliet. Romeo becomes really flirty with Juliet throughout the rest of the story as he likes her and wants to make sure that he impresses her. Furthermore, Mercutio is looking out for Romeo and wants him to have a good time at the party but the way he told him this shows that he knows that he will find a new lover.
In addition to Mercutio, the nurse in Romeo and Juliet was able to incorporate her sense of humor to cheer up Juliet when she is unsure about marrying Romeo in a way that the audience wouldn’t expect. The nurse is on the Capulet side and acts as a mother towards Juliet, as her mother is constantly busy. Throughout the book, the nurse makes some outrageous remarks towards Juliet and Lady Capulet. Some of these remarks are completely unnecessary as they hint to sexual jokes. An example of these remarks is when the nurse is having a conversation with Juliet about Romeo before they had just gotten married. She stated:
I must another way,
To fetch a ladder by the which your love
Must climb a bird’s nest soon when it is dark.
I am the drudge and toil in your delight,
But you shall bear the burden soon at night. (2.5 77–81)
The Nurse is explaining that right now, she is doing the hard work for Juliet, but once Juliet gets married to Romeo, she will have to do all of the hard work. She will have to get used to carrying the heavy ladder to Romeo’s house so she can climb into his bedroom at night. In other words, once they are married, Juliet will be sleeping and probably having sex with Romeo. This was very unexpected because one would believe that the nurse would be wise and give Juliet good advice about Romeo or agree with whatever Juliet says about Romeo, not someone who just throws out ideas, no matter how crazy they are. This shocks the audience and makes them more engaged because every time she would speak after her first sex joke, they would be at the edges of their seats hoping what she will say next will be another sex joke or not. Furthermore, because of the Nurses jokes that she believed would help Juliet, the audience would stop focusing on the main characters because they would be wondering what the Nurse would say next.
Similar to Romeo and Juliet, there are many other stories that the secondary characters have a role to bring light to the audience so they aren’t bored with the plot. The Princess Bride tells a story of two lovers who live far away from each other. Princess Buttercup is being forced to marry Prince Humperdinck, who Buttercup can’t stand. All she wants to do is be with Westley, a poor boy who she worked with in the past. Buttercup is kidnapped by this gang and taken to an island. The gang consists of Vizzini, a short man who is the brain of the group, Inigo Montoya, an expert fencer who is trying to find the man who killed his father, and Fezzik, a dumb giant. Even though they are so different, they work together to make an “unbeatable” team. Fessik loves to rhyme so in when they kidnapped Buttercup, he was rhyming all the way to the island. This was hysterical because the gang is about to go on a very daring journey to the Cliffs of Insanity. The cliffs of insanity are about 300 ft high and they would climb that with only a rope. But, the giant doesn’t even care and just starts rhyming. An example of this was when the three of them were having a conversation on the ship and they stated,
Inigo Montoya: Fezzik, are there rocks ahead?
Fezzik: If there are, we all be dead.
Vizzini: No more rhymes now, I mean it.
Fezzik: Anybody want a peanut?
This is so uncalled for, which is what makes the scene so famous and funny. Vizzini was getting really mad at him, but he knew, there was no way to stop Fezzik because of his size. Nobody watching this movie, for the first time, would expect Fezzik to be joking around during a serious time like this.
Another example of the gang making the audience laugh is when Inigo is fighting Count Rugen (the 6 fingered man). Count Rugen is Prince Humperdinck’s wingman who killed Inigo’s father years ago right in front of Inigo. Then Inigo and Count Rugen got into a duel which led to Inigo almost dying. He praised his father and has been planning his next duel with Rugen for years. All he wants to do is kill Count Rugen. He already knows exactly what he will say to him when they meet, “Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die!!” This is really funny to the audience because he repeats this statement about 20 times during the course of the movie. In addition, instead of helping Fezzik break up the wedding of Buttercup and Westley, he ditches them to go fight Rugen. This completely breaks up the central plot as now, the audience is worried about Inigo battling Rugen. The audience can almost predict what he will say, which is similar to the Nurse always making sex jokes in Romeo and Juliet. Clearly, Vizzini, Inigo, and Fezzik bring a lot of humor to a story which most people think would be more romantic than comical.
The secondary characters in Romeo and Juliet and The Princess Bride are similar as they are humorous in supporting the protagonist(s) throughout the story. An audience wants to be engaged when reading a book or watching a movie so they don’t become bored and stop caring about the rest of the plot. There were a lot of good movies that contain secondary characters that add humor to keep the plot going, but the Princess Bride best shows that even in romance movies, humor can go a long way to help get the audience to laugh.
Abstract
In writing this essay, I wanted to find out how the secondary characters had an impact on the story in a humorous way. Also, I wanted to see how those secondary characters affect the main characters, plot line, and audience. These questions initially got to my attention when we were watching Romeo and Juliet in Westport, CT. The actor playing Mercutio and the Nurse were very humorous in a way that got the attention of the audience. I wanted to find another movie, then, that shared that similar technique, but mainly through the context of love. One of the first movies that came to mind was the Princess Bride, which is my parent’s all-time favorite movie. They have shown it to me many times and have specifically pointed out the humorous characters such as Vizzini, Inigo, Fezzik, etc…. Because there were so many good examples of the secondary characters humoring both the main characters, and the audience, it was pretty easy for me to compare that to Romeo and Juliet.
Works Cited
The Princess Bride. Directed by Rob Reiner, 1987.
Shakespeare, William. Romeo and Juliet. Simon and Schuster, 2004.
