Relationships Between Men and Women in The Winters Tale...

Relationships Between Men and Women in The Winters Tale by William Shakespeare The Winters Tale was written in 1611, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. The play is one of Shakespeares romance titles, though it could be more justly referred to as a tragi-comedy due to the instances of accusation, death, repentance and reunion. To successfully study how Shakespeare presents relationships between men and women in The Winters Tale there are four main relationships to examine - Hermione and Leontes, Paulina and Antigonus, Perdita and Florizel, and Leontes and Paulina. Shakespeares view of women, and generally the Elizabethan view, suggested that women had less capability for evil - can†¦show more content†¦If we wished to discuss the base treatment of women in Elizabethan literature there would be more productive areas to look than in The Winters Tale. Rather The Winters Tale is useful for its brevity of the depiction of how Shakespeares contemporaries may have believed women should act. This is successfully carried out through presenting the audience with three women who are effectively caricatures, what T.E. (?) referred to as Maids, Wives and Widows, these represented in The Winters Tale by Perdita, Hermione, and Paulina, respectively. The relationship between Hermione and Leontes would be seen by a Shakespearian audience as one to approve of and, with regards to this play, it is possibly the most important. Hermione is the faithful, never doubting, humble wife who will stand by her husband even amidst his throes of jealousy and tyranny and place her trust in destiny and the stars: HERMIONE I must be patient till the heavens look With an aspect more favourable. Good my lords, I am not prone to weeping, as our sex Commonly are. (Act Two, Scene 1) Hermiones supposed resurrection could be seen either a cynicism - in that she wished to reward Leontes for his tyranny with sixteen years of repentance or could be seen as a valid form of justice for her. Modern audiences may see the resurrection of HermioneShow MoreRelatedWilliam Shakespeare s The Winter s Tale1352 Words   |  6 PagesFrom the beginning to the end of ‘The Winter’s Tale’, William Shakespeare explores the equivocal power of the of the imagination, its capacity to create and to destroy. Shakespeare explores gender roles and adapts his plot to create a more controversial pivot and present his revised perspective on human experience. Modern Jacobean audiences are presented with a play deep-rooted in tragicomic realms, with nuanced underlying messages, and Shakespeare masterfully uses gender in order to accentuate andRead MoreEssay on Power of Men in William Shakespeares The Winters Tale3919 Words   |  16 PagesPower of Men in William Shakespe ares The Winters Tale It has been said that in The Winters Tale Shakespeare dramatises the contemporary struggle between masculine and feminine power. In light of this comment, examine the presentation of the relationships between men and women. Despite their many differences, contemporary society is now only beginning to realise their equal and respective roles in society. Since the beginning of time a contemporary struggle for equality has been presentRead MoreCold Relationships : A Lack Of Marital Felicity Essay2405 Words   |  10 PagesCold Relationships: A Lack of Marital Felicity in The Winter’s Tale The patriarchal and patrilineal society of Shakespeare’s era often made it difficult for women to be on the same level as men in terms of property, money, and rights. What is not often mentioned is the way in which even male-male relationships were glorified as well. In a society which thought males to be the best gender, it is not surprising that male friendships would be put above that of even the marriage of a man and wife. WilliamRead More Analysis of King Leontes Transformation Essay1696 Words   |  7 Pagessituation, between him and Othello. Both men transform, emotionally, into beast like figures whose actions ultimately end their lineage. Although Perdita remains alive, and is able to carry on King Leontes’s bloodline, his name will die with her marriage to Florizel. Othello and King Leontes also adapt a diction that transforms their language into something that resembles the baseness of humanity by the presentation of bestial images and rape that signify t he personal anxieties of each men. HoweverRead MoreThe Sonnet Form: William Shakespeare6305 Words   |  26 PagesShakespeare’s Sonnets William Shakespeare The Sonnet Form A sonnet is a fourteen-line lyric poem, traditionally written in iambic pentameter—that is, in lines ten syllables long, with accents falling on every second syllable, as in: â€Å"Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?† The sonnet form first became popular during the Italian Renaissance, when the poet Petrarch published a sequence of love sonnets addressed to an idealized woman named Laura. Taking firm hold among Italian poets, the sonnet