Assignment - The Winter's Tale

The production of William Shakespeare are usually not written or printed out in those days in order to prevent plagiarism. One of his great works captured in text was The Winter’s Tale. According to research, the play was written before 15th May 1611. Shakespeare has read widely on Pandosto’s work especially the vocabulary used before producing The Winter’s Tale. Some has thought that The Winter’s Tale is a poor play, however not for Shakespeare. “This play can be called a romantic tragic-comedy, but it has a strong element of realism in plot, incident, character, and language; perhaps stronger than any other plays” (Pafford, J.H. 1971).

The Winter’s Tale is about the friendship of two kings which later broken apart when the wife got accused for infidelity with the king’s friend. This created grief in the queen’s son which then died and the queen’s daughter was sent away by the king to be murdered. However, when the daughter grew up, she falls in love with the enemy’s son and their love had finally melted the hearts of their old folks. The unity at the end became more interesting as the queen who turned into stone earlier has taken her human character later.” The Winter’s Tale becomes a perfect example of Shakespeare’s ‘symbolic technique’ as the characters, incidents, patterns, settings, and phraseology are equally striking in showing relationship in the play” (Pafford, J.H. 1971). The themes arise are mostly revolves around the characters and the situations they get involve in throughout the play.

One of the prominent themes in The Winter’s Tale is jealousy. The deadly jealousy Leontes had over his wife; Hermione and his best friend; Polixenes had taken his son’s life; Mammilius. Leontes and Polixenes had been best friends for years and when Polixenes came to visit Leontes in Sicilia, Leontes started having doubts in the relationship between Hermione and Polixenes. He accused Hermione that the child she was carrying in her womb belongs to Polixenes. The intimacy he saw between them, made him to set up a trap to kill Polixenes. However, just on time, Polixenes was informed by Camillo of Leontes plans and he left Sicilia. Unfortunately, the innocent Hermione who was accused of being infidel was heartbroken and reported by Paulina later that the she had died. All these false accusation on Hermione was then heard by Mammilius and he started falling ill and died of grief. Leontes had also ordered Lord Antigonous; husband to Paulina to take away and kill the newborn child which he believed to be of Polixenes and Hermione. All these jealousy had left Leontes all alone for the next 16 years in his kingdom without a wife, daughter, son and also friend.

Another major theme found in The Winter’s Tale is forgiveness. There are few characters that portray this element such as Polixenes, Hermione, Perdita and so on. The actions of Leontes to kill Polixenes and accused Hermione for the act she did not commit in the end had destroyed him. At the end of the play, the evil minded Leontes asked for forgiveness from Polixenes for setting up trap to kill him due to jealousy. Apart from that, Leontes also asked for forgiveness from his beloved wife, Hermione for accusing her having an affair with Polixenes. The greatness of these characters is reflected in their actions to openly forgive Leontes’s mistreatments towards them. Hermione is indeed a model of passive virtue and forgiveness. She then who was a statue, turned alive when Leontes asked Paulina for Hermione to forgive him. She has a lot of endurance and strength towards the false accusation of her husband. She merely acts as an obedient wife and did not talk against Leontes’s commands. Hermione has always been loyal to her husband until the end of the play (www.gradesaver.com). On the other hand, Polixenes who had been Leontes’s childhood friend, despite been targeted for assassination by Leontes, he agreed to forgive Leontes’s mistreatment towards him. Polixenes’s forgiveness is reflected by his actions to allow his son; Florizel to marry Perdita; Leontes’s daughter at the end of the play (www.gradesaver.com) and not wanting to take revenge over what Leontes did 16 years ago.

The theme of time is also another significant element found in The Winter’s Tale. As we know, this is the longest time span set for a play; 16 years. Shakespeare had made the story to sound interesting by saying Polixenes stayed in Sicilia for 9 months which triggers reader’s mind when Hermione was accused to have Polixenes child in her womb. Apart from that, time was still for Leontes; even though 16 years had passed in the play, everything around him was unchanged. The act when Polixenes and Camillo came into Leontes’s castle, had made Leontes’s mind reverse 16 years back in time and remembered the time he had with his best childhood friend (www.shmoop.com). Sicilia’s castle was the witness for all the actions that took place in the past and present. The character who suffered the most was Leontes; “his grief over his destruction of his family prevents him being able to move forward with his life – although sixteen years pass before he has finally reunited with his family, Leontes's lives as though he was frozen in time” (www.shmoop.com).

Restoration and reunion is another crucial theme arises in The Winter’s Tale. Camillo is one important character that helped the old kings to reunite after 16 years when he noticed that Perdita and Florizel are in love with each other. He is a resolute man of action: he works to resolve the chaos and plans and achieves the re-uniting in Sicilia. He is an agent of reconciliation (Pafford, J.H., 1971: 1xxvi). And most interesting, Camillo was then reunited with Paulina after 16 years. Paulina was joyful and Camillo has acquired a wife beyond price. Camillo had reunited the kings and the lovers with each other, whereas Paulina on the other hand had reunited Leontes with Hermione; by restoring the queen with her magic power and Hermione with her long lost daughter; Perdita who was accused to belong to Polixenes. Thus, after 16 years of conflict, fury, jealousy and suffering all the characters were reunited and the play leads to a happy ending.

In conclusion, The Winter’s Tale uses a structure of themes that occurs throughout the play. Along with plot, character, setting and style, theme is considered as one of the fundamental components of fiction (en.wikipedia.org). Leontes’s jealousy had created a chaos in the play, which then made almost all the characters broken apart. However, with restoration and reunion of family and friends made the play ended in a happy mood. The Winter’s Tale is the longest play stated in Shakespeare’s work; the 16 years gap before all the characters were reunited is a long period of time. There are other themes too that are interrelated to each other such as youth and age, friendship, marriage, season and so on and so forth. Therefore, the themes used in The Winter’s Tale helps to get the message across about human life and nature by exploring timeless and universal ideas in general.