Very early in the play, Leontes is deeply loving towards his wife and his best friend. However, when he observes them seeming affectionate towards each other, he quickly turns violently jealous. Scholars have difficulty accounting for why this happens because there does not seem to be an outside motivation for it. Whatever the reason, Leontes' jealousy becomes more and more violent, such that he first arranges to murder his friend and then puts his wife on trial. He refuses to believe the Delphic Oracle when it says that Hermione is innocent. Only when Paulina reports that she is dead does he show regret. The play indicates that he mourns her and his actions for the next 16 years, portraying a humility he has never shown before. When she is revealed to be alive (or the statue of her comes to life, depending on your interpretation of the play) he is shocked and grateful.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
What is the theme of the chapter Lead?
Primo Levi's complex probing of the Holocaust, including his survival of Auschwitz and pre- and post-war life, is organized around indiv...
-
The statement "Development policy needs to be about poor people, not just poor countries," carries a lot of baggage. Let's dis...
-
"Mistaken Identity" is an amusing anecdote recounted by the famous author Mark Twain about an experience he once had while traveli...
-
Primo Levi's complex probing of the Holocaust, including his survival of Auschwitz and pre- and post-war life, is organized around indiv...
-
De Gouges's Declaration of the Rights of Woman was enormously influential. We can see its influences on early English feminist Mary Woll...
-
As if Hamlet were not obsessed enough with death, his uncovering of the skull of Yorick, the court jester from his youth, really sets him of...
-
In both "Volar" and "A Wall of Fire Rising," the characters are impacted by their environments, and this is indeed refle...
No comments:
Post a Comment