Shakespearean Drama
By Fuat ÖZKUL, (May 23, 2006; METU - Ankara)
3. The Winter’s Tale
Leontes’ state of mind is supported with imagery. Discuss.
A Beautiful Mind!
Leontes’ delusional conviction that his wife and best friend have become lovers causes all of the problems of the play. He abuses his authority as king, bringing ruin and eventual death on his blameless wife and son, as well as the loss of his infant daughter. Although the complication in the play depends basicly on his irrational jealousy, Leontes does not have any convincing reasons. However, his state of mind is supported (poisoned) with imagery. He does not have concrete evidence or clues but his suspicions help or lead him to find satisfactory reasons of his own in his creative mind. He says:
Too hot, too hot
To mingle friendship far, is mingling bloods
I have tremor cordis on me, my heart dances;
But not for joy, not joy. (1.2. 108-111)
In asides to the audience, Leontes reveals that he is insanely jealous of Polixenes and Hermione. He is convinced that they are secretly committing adultery, although he has no hard evidence on which to base his suspicions. In full view of the others, he asks his young son Mamillius questions loaded with double meanings about whether or not the child is his boy: “ My bosom likes not, nor my brows! Mamillius, /Art thou my boy?” (1.2.119- 120). Just a courtly gesture of his wife, giving her hand to Polixenes, causes him to produce evidence in his imagination. Although people at court speak often of how much Mamillius resembles him, he persists in the delusion that the child’s paternity is questionable.
Later when his most trusted advisor Camillo insists that Hermione is innocent, his rage shows unequivocally that he will not have his delusions questioned:
Is whispering nothing?
Is leaning cheek to cheek? is meeting noses?
Kissing with inside lip? stopping the career
Of laughter with a sigh? a note infallible
Of breaking honesty; horsing foot on foot?
Skulking in corners? wishing clocks more swift? (1.2.284-289)
He dwells obsessively on the idea of being a known cuckold, a man whose wife is an adulterer, although Camillo’s responses indicate that no one at court views the king that way. The images run so fast that he cannot follow them: “My wife is nothing; nor nothing have these nothings/ if this be nothing.” (1.2. 296-297) . Leontes’ grows increasingly furious, and Camillo, seeing the king’s conviction, seems to give in. At Leontes’ expressed desire to see Polixenes dead of poison, he offers to carry out the task.
The spider imagery used by Leontes is especially important to understand how his state of mind is supported with imagery: He states:
How blest am I
In my just censure, in my true opinion!
Alack, for lesser knowledge! how accurst
In being so blest! There may be in the cup
A spider sleept, an done may drink, depart,
And yet partake no venom; for his knowledge
Is not infected: but if one present
Th’abhorred ingredient to his eye, make known
How he hath drunk, he cracks his gorge, his sides
With violent hefts: I have drunk and seen the spider. (2.1.41-50)
With his diseased mind he produces poisonous and dirty images.If you do not know that the spider is there, as your knowledge is not infected, you can drink it. But if you see the creature after you drink it, you will feel sick and hold your sides to vomit. He interprets Camillo’s flight with Polixenes as conclusive proof of his suspicions, ignoring the fact that if Camillo, Hermione, and Polixenes were innocent Camillo would do exactly the same thing. He now believes that Camillo was a double agent working for Polixenes. Leontes’ delusions isolate him from his family and his court. He removes his wife and son from his company, and he continues to believe in Hermione’s infidelity even though everyone at court thinks the idea is ludicrous. He is completely alone in his suspicions, however the less proof he has, the more crazed he becomes.
By indulging in his groundless paranoia, Leontes transforms himself from good king to bad king, and a large part of this change comes because of his diseased state of mind supported with imagery. Namely his beautiful mind has played games on him that caused him to fail as a man and ruler.
WORKS CITED
Shakespeare, W.The Winter’s Tale. London: Longmans, Green & Co Ltd., 1959.
