The Winter's Tale

Though the era in which The Winter’s Tale is set is not explicit in the text, it is revealed that the play takes place in a time when Italy was generally polytheistic, thus hundreds of years before Shakespeare’s own Jacobean era. Leontes sends his men to receive a prophecy from the Greek god Apollo delivered by the Oracle of Delphi (called Delphos in the play), a priestess said to interpret visions from the gods. Though this practice would be seen as heretical in the religiously tumultuous yet strictly Christian Jacobean era in which the play was first performed, Shakespeare uses syncretism—the amalgamation or comparison of different cultures—to make the characters’ struggles more relatable to a contemporary audience. As was true for a contemporary Christian audience, the word of a god (in Sicilia’s case, Apollo) is considered above all else. While Leontes refuses to believe his most trusted allies about Hermione’s fidelity, the one he says he will believe is Apollo, whom he treats as omnipotent, not unlike the Christian god. Other comparisons become more pronounced as the play progresses, yet Act II’s introduction of syncretism lays the foundation for Leontes’s fall from grace in Act III.

Aside from Hermione, two important female characters are introduced in this act: Paulina and Hermione’s daughter, later named Perdita. Though Leontes ignores everyone’s opinions, it is these three female characters whom he denies the most. He throws Hermione in jail rather than hear what she has to say, accuses Paulina of witchcraft when she attempts to persuade him of Hermione’s innocence, and demands the burning and death of his daughter, whom he does not believe is his. In reality, the three female characters embody truth. If Leontes had believed Hermione’s testimony, Paulina’s rationale, or his daughter’s shared features, Jealousy’s Destructive Consequences would not have come to fruition. He is given three chances to believe the female characters around him, but takes each for granted, foreshadowing his disbelief of another powerful woman, the Oracle of Delphi, in the following act.

As depicted in Act II, Scene 1, Leontes’s disbelief of women stems from sexism common in Shakespeare’s time. Leontes continues his tirade on women’s “nature,” their supposed inclination to be unfaithful, exposing Hermione to potential ridicule. One of his trusted advisors, Antigonus, opposes this mindset, using his virtuous wife and three daughters as evidence yet suggesting there is no woman as virtuous as Hermione: “every inch of woman in the world, / Ay, every dram of woman’s flesh is false, If she be” (2.1.761-62). Antigonus also tries to reason with Leontes when he accuses his wife Paulina of being a witch. When the king tells Antigonus to control her, he responds, “When she will take the rein I let her run; / But she’ll not stumble” (2.3.989-90). Antigonus and Paulina provide a stark contrast to the relationship between Leontes and Hermione, highlighting the latter’s imbalance of power. Both men are married to women who speak the truth, yet whereas Leontes tries to hide the truth by shutting Hermione away, Antigonus knows the truth will be revealed regardless of his or Paulina’s actions.