Onstage, the actress playing Hermione would look suitably royal, at the beginning, as she is the Queen of Leontes. However, this image is reduced to her standing, pregnant, and “hurried here in open air, before [she] had strength of limit.” It is a downfall from grace, and we are encouraged to look upon her with pity, as the “queen is spotless.” This is re-enforced by the fact that Hermione continues to show respect to Leontes (“you, my lord, do but mistake” – “the king’s will be performed”), and not get angry, which gains her respect from the audience.
The braveness of Hermione is mirrored throughout the play by Paulina, who shows this when she retorts to Leontes, “it is the heretic who makes the fire, not she who burns in’t.” In Shakespeare’s time, women could be sentenced to death for retorting to a man, and in this respect I believe that Shakespeare is trying to make the audience believe that women can be valued as much as men. It is important to the position of women in The Winter’s Tale as it strengthens their position of virtuous characters in the play.
Paulina is the one who speaks out in defence of Hermione (“A gracious, innocent soul”), who is already pitied, and this fortifies her position in relation to women being central to the plot. She is the one who speaks out the undercurrent pinning the play down – “the silence often of pure innocence persuades when speaking fails.” It is knowledge that the young in the play rectify the wrongdoings of the old, and is part of the complete moral of the play.
The character of Paulina is one of imperativeness; “let him have knowledge of who I am,” and quick wit and courage: “I’ll use that tongue of mine, if wit follow from’t as boldness from my bosom.” She is also independent – “On mine own accord I’ll off,” and she also believes in moral values, that the “innocent…should be freed and enfranchised.” She is the one who, as well as providing a seldom moment of comedy to the gloomy confines of Leontes’ jealousy, (“What studies torments, tyrant, hast for me? What wheels, racks, fires?), maintains a steady moral that the innocent are good, and that, if a person is repentant, should get back “that which has been lost.” She also embodies goodness, which is hardly likely, but when she scolds Leontes, even he tells her to “go on, go on…I have deserved all tongues to talk their bitterest.” However, even after her betaking him “to despair,” she still allows Leontes to “awake his faith,” and grants him his wife. Even through this emotional act, her imperativeness comes through – “Music; awake her, strike.”
Paulina, after Camillo has departed, seems to take the position of trusted advisor to the king. This is a great role, and the fact that she is placed in this role must mean that she is an important character in The Winter’s Tale. Camillo was honest and can admit wrongdoing – “I ever I were wilful-negligent, it was my folly.” Paulina is mirrored in this role, which makes me believe that they share the same values as each other. Indeed, Leontes, at the end of the play, marries them, - “Come, Camillo, take her by the hand, whose worth and honesty is richly noted.”
Despite her “rashness of a woman,” Paulina is called “good Paulina” by Leontes. This indicates that she has been like a nurse to him, who are usually associated with “healing the disease.” This adds to the character of Paulina, and this trait she has particular with Hermione (a good mother), which toughens the role of women in the play.
Perdita is an end to an act in itself – her character symbolises the change from the “sad tale” best “for winter,” to “the sweet o’the year,” when the “red blood reigns in the winter’s pale.” This is important, as spring is associated with rebirth and that it “does give a life,” and it gives the audience a glimmer of hope. Perdita could be described merely as a “plot device,” but it important to know that it is Leontes’ daughter who is being talked about. In fact, all the major role of women in The Winter’s Tale have major connections to the royal family. Perdita is the item which “was lost [and] must be found.” Without her, the play wouldn’t get everybody back to Sicilia for a *dramatic showdown*.
Perdita is presented as speaking verse, not prose, and it is usually people in high places that speak verse. She, being the princess of Sicilia, is obviously important to the plot because the audience watching knows it his her.
However, Perdita is patronised by Florizel and Camillo when discussing how to get back to Leontes. This is clearly a difference in social class, and Shakespeare wanted to present Perdita as a symbol of inequality between the higher and lower statuses. Shakespeare wanted to make clear that this difference of social class wasn’t acceptable, and which is why women in The Winter’s Tale are so of great value.
Perdita, in some plays, was acted by the same actress as Hermione. The effect that was hoped was created was that the same virtues were heredity, for instance, Perdita, after being threatened to “have her beauty thrathed out,” shows extreme bravery, like Hermione, when she states that “I was about to speak and tell him plainly the self-same sun that shines upon his court…looks on alike.” This bravery is articulated throughout the whole of the play in every female character, and clearly shows that Shakespeare wanted to illustrate women as this.
To back up the fact that women were items to won are quotations such as “she hangs around his neck like a Medallion, Bohemia,” and “she hangs about his neck.” The position of women in the play is also strengthened if compared to the men – Antigonus vows to “geld all his daughters,” Leontes’ jealousy shows human emotions at its most destructive, Polixenes blackmails Camillo emotionally – “The need I have of thee…do not punish me with the remembrance of the penitent, as thou call’st him, and reconciled king” – and even Camillo, though undoubtedly not “to let villainy foreswear it,” did in truth “avoid…the jealousy of [Leontes],” and forsook him.
The stagecraft in the play is so that the audience can clearly see the emotions of the women coming through, such as when Hermione is “prating and talking for her life,” and when Paulina is the one who dramatically proclaims that “the queen, the queen, the sweet’st, dear’st creature’s dead. This helps the spectators on their way to interpret their view on the women in the play, be it for good or for worse.
The position of women is very difficult to interpret in The Winter’s Tale. Hermione, Paulina, and Perdita are all shown as vital plot devices, and they are also shown as brave and helpful. Shakespeare seems to be making a point about social hierarchy in the day, and the fact that even women in the play are played by women (unheard of in Shakespearian times), is making a poignant statement about the role of women in the play.
Women are portrayed as virtuous and as a reward for those who truly repent (such as when Hermione “hangs about [Leontes] neck.”), and help the moral value of the play shine through, which is one of “reconciliation and mercy,” – “even extended to the unworthy.”
However, women are also shown as “deceitful and…sluiced in’s absence.” However, as Leontes is proven wrong by the oracle, this claim can be dismissed as jealous ranting, and that the audience should more likely show pity to Hermione, not disgust.
Women in The Winter’s Tale are as vital as the male characters, I believe, and that, during the course of the play, much abuse is heaped on them. Shakespeare wanted to show the heavy burden of being a woman in his time, and wanted to make a statement against the stereotypical view of them.
