Men and women in Shakespeare’s play, The Winter’s Tale essay

Shakespeare’s play

Men and women in Shakespeare’s play, The Winter’s Tale

There are several interesting relationships between men and women in Shakespeare’s play, The Winter’s Tale. It is clear that a twenty-first century audience will respond to these relationships in a different light from its initial seventeenth century audience as so many changes have occurred over the three centuries since it was first performed. Issues such as sexuality, status and the positions of men and women in society are explored in the play and are played out in the relationships that unfold as the play progresses.

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The play is based upon the unfounded jealousy of the King of Sicilia, Leontes, who believes that his wife, Queen Hermione, is committing adultery with his best friend, the King of Bohemia, Polixenes. From the outset, the audience is made aware of the close bond that has existed between the two Kings since their earliest days:

They were trained together in their childhoods; and there rooted betwixt them then such an affection, which cannot choose but branch now (pp. 5-6)……………….

This is likely to strike a cord with modern audiences just as it would have done in Shakespeare’s time. However, opinions about female sexuality were different in the seventeenth century as women’s sexuality was misunderstood and considered a powerful and even dangerous force if it was not bound by the conventions of the society at the time.

Leontes’ fear that his wife is an adulteress, then, would have spoken to contemporary audiences of the fears within their society. Today, the acceptance that women’s sexuality is just as valid as men’s means that the play is interpreted from a different angle and Hermione is pitied even more. Unlike earlier heroines such as Desdemona who is unfairly accused of adultery in Othello, Hermione demonstrates emotional strength and is not solely defined in relation to her husband.

This is shown in the trial scene when she appeals to her husband’s knowledge of her past life “as continent, as chaste, as true, / As I am now unhappy” (p.44). Shakespeare, therefore, while presenting the relationship between Leontes and Hermione as one in which Leontes has the power to impose judgment upon Hermione, there is also an inner power granted to Hermione whose integrity is not damaged by the accusations and treatment of her husband……………………………