Re-reading Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale! Make that Re-re-reading it.  

After finishing the final scene for my last post, I felt frustrated in that it felt like Paulina had become the main character all of a sudden, and I hadn’t followed her character as closely. So I’ve read the entire play AGAIN, this time focusing on Paulina and what her deal is.

In act 2, Antigonus has a jokey line saying that if the wonderful and amazing Hermoine is not chaste, then he cannot trust any woman to be honest, not even his wife. This wife is not mentioned by name, so the audience isn’t given anything to think that this will become an important character. Paulina doesn’t appear on stage until act 2 scene 2, where she shows up at the jail demanding to know what’s become of Hermoine. The scene’s opening exchange is between her and a jailer, where Paulina does the “Do know who you’re talking to?” game, insisting that she’s someone important that everyone knows. The servant woman Emilia informs Paulina that Hermoine has given birth to a baby girl while in jail. Paulina insists that she’s the one who must inform Leontes the king about this, because only she is “honey-mouthed” enough to deliver the bad news. She also convinces the jailer to let her take the baby away with her. This shows Paulina has a take-charge attitude. She out-talks everyone and manipulates events in her favor. This seemingly expository scene is also Paulina taking the first steps to setting up the play’s finale.

In act 2 scene 3, we get some interaction between Paulina and Antigonus, and we establish her position, where she describes herself as both physician and counselor to the king. She’s also clearly the boss in her marriage with Antigonus. When Paulina shows the baby to Leontes, he dismisses her, calling her a spy and a traitor. If she’s manipulating events behind the scenes, then could that be unintentionally true? Leontes, who has fallen deep into madness by this point, wants the baby put to death by fire (!). When Paulina argues against this, he suggests putting her to death as well. Paulina stands up to the mad king by calling him weak, and she turns the traitor insult back on him. It’s the unnamed lord, however, that convinces Leontes to change his ways, and orders the baby to be taken into the wilderness instead.

Act 3 scene 2 is Hermoine’s trial. At the height of the drama, she swoons and faints. The stage notes specify that Paulina joins the servants who carry Hermoine off stage. She has to back-to-back speeches announcing Hermoine’s death, that are loaded with insults hurled at Leontes. It’s after these two speeches that Leontes has his abrupt change of heart, and is now overwhelmed with grief over what he’s done and how he’s behaved. There’s also a detail of how Hermoine and young Prince Mamillus are to be buried in one grave. Can we interpret all this as Hermoine not dying, and Paulina secreting her away when off stage? And now the still-alive Hermoine is hiding away at Paulina’s museum-like home? I can see how you might make that case.

We don’t see Paulina again for a while, as the action shifts to Bohemia, where her husband is killed… by a bear! Then there’s the sixteen-year time jump, where we get all the romantic ups and downs with Perdita and wackiness with Antigonus (the king of thieves!). As a bunch of those characters decide to return to Sicilia, we finally return to Paullina in act 5. She’s encouraging Leontes not to remarry. She says this is because no women could be as great as Hermoine, but she also refers to Hermoine as the one Leontes “killed.” If Paulina has a living Hermoine hidden away somewhere, then this is part of her long game, hopeful to set up the big reunion someday. But she says she believes the baby died when the bear got Antigonus. So, is she hiding Hermione just keep Hermoine safe from Leontes, or does Paulina have an end game? Hard to say.

When a servant announces that Florizell has arrived in Sicilia, Paulina cries out Hermoine’s name, saying the present has become better than the sorrowful past. Remembering all that business with Oracle of Delphi earlier in the play, Paulina and the other characters see this as possible fulfilment of the prophesy considering the king’s long-lost heir. Then the big reunion happens mostly off-stage, and there’s fleeing mentions of a statue of Hermoine at Paulina’s house, with all the characters heading there to see it. That takes us to the final scene where Paulina shows everyone the statue of Hermoine. Either the statue magically transforms from stone into a still alive Hermoine, or it’s all a show and Hermoine is playing at being a statue to fake everyone out. However you read it, it appears that Hermoine manipulated things to get this statue business to happen.

I thought The Winter’s Tale was about one man’s jealousy sinking two kingdoms into darkness, and two young lovers bringing light back to it all. Now I wonder if The Winter’s Tale is about one woman seeing her kingdom fall apart, and enacting a years-long scheme to restore it all. Many scholars say Shakespeare’s plays are better seen performed rather than read, and I think that’s especially true of The Winter’s Tale. What this story is and what it’s trying to say is so ambiguous that it’s really up to each production’s director and actors to decide just what The Winter’s Tale is.

Next: I have other ideas for more Shakespeare stuff for this blog, but I’ll take a little break first. Coming up next, something with a little more… space.

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