A Winter's Tale - Why is Leontes so jealous of Hermione and Polixenes and why does he think they are having an affair?

Leontes recognises the intimacy in Hermione and Polixenes’ relationship. He sees the holding of hands and the friendly conversations they have together. This is the basic reason for Leontes developing a sense of jealousy towards the two. This is somewhat ironic though as Leontes has previously asked his wife, Hermione, to try and make Polixenes feel as welcome as possible when staying with them. Leontes feels that this request has been taken too far by Hermione or perhaps he forgets he asked her to do it altogether.

Leontes realises that Hermione and Polixenes’ topics of conversation have perhaps become (or always were) quite intimate and sexual. Hermione talks about keeping Polixenes “prisoner, not like a guest” and Polixenes talks about “innocence”. Hermione even refers to adultery in persuading Polixenes to stay when he wishes to leave. She says when describing Polixenes and Leontes’ marriages that she hopes,

“If you first sinn’d with us, and that with us

You did continue fault, and that you slipp’d not

With any but with us [Hermione and the wife of Polixenes]”.

Hermione in talking so candidly about this may have alerted Leontes to the possibly she is cheating on him.

Later on Hermione comes across to me at least as sounding slightly sexual; especially in the way she talks about horses and kissing. She says to Polixenes and Leontes, “You may ride’s with one soft kiss a thousand furlongs ere with spur we heat an acre”. I think this tone in which she talks is sexual and could be construed by Leontes as being slightly flirtatious.

Leontes feels that Hermione has become almost too welcoming to Polixenes. When Hermione is persuading Polixenes to stay she says that she gives Leontes permission “to let him there [Bohemia on the return leg] a month behind the gest prefix’d for’s parting”. Leontes sees this as Hermione working out a way for her to see more of Polixenes to further their relationship. Leontes also sees this as Hermione distancing herself from him in that she would like to spend more time with other people instead of spending quality time at home with her husband. The mental illness affecting Leontes prevents him from seeing that in fact this is an act of kindness towards him allowing him to see more of his old best friend.

Hermione we discover is about eight months pregnant. To Leontes this implies that her almost desperate reasoning with Polixenes for him to stay for longer might be because he is the father and she needs his support with bringing up the child. To a sane Leontes this surely would be insane as this would mean Hermione would have accepted that Leontes would have to find out that her and Polixenes had been having an affair. If this was the case then I think she would have either fled her husband and home or let Leontes know that it was not his baby. The fact that she is eight months pregnant ties in with the arrival of Polixenes a month previous to her conceiving. This would make Leontes feel humiliated as he would have to assume that Polixenes and Hermione had been having an affair under his nose for the duration of her pregnancy; a full eight months.

Leontes view that the two are having an affair is compounded further when Camillo, who he has told to poison Polixenes, appears to flee Sicily with Polixenes. This makes Leontes feel there is or has been a plot against him in which some of his own people are involved.

Leontes mental state is obviously creating an illusion, which he feels he has evidence to back up. Leontes’ natural paranoid mind creates the idea of his “pond fish’d by his next door neighbour”. Leontes is isolating himself and turning himself into a victim therefore backing up the image in his mind that his wife is cheating on him. He creates the story in which his wife is having an affair and applies it to the real world.