Book Review: The Winter’s Tale

“A sad tales best for winter. I have one 

Of Sprites and goblins” Mamilius, The Winter’s Tale: Act 2 Scene 1

Shakespeare has proven yet again that men are somewhat, narrow minded when it comes to the lives of their wives. No woman can be honestly and truly in love with her husband. In ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ Claudio was fooled into thinking that Hero was unfaithful, or a whore. It is more common than not in Shakespeare that men are the cause of a lot of problems, look at Othello. It just goes to show how easily men are led into believing that women shouldn’t be trusted, when it was women who birthed them! But it’s not just Shakespeare who makes men damp squibs. In fact, its Grecian. Take Antigone, or Medea, two women who are at the mercy of male ego and bureaucracy, in the end Antigone takes her own life and Medea, kills her own children in revenge for being deserted. My personal take away from Greek tragedy is this: Listen to women and you shall not fall foul of fate. Ego and the desire to be obeyed with absolution is a dangerous mix. It is almost Machiavellian in how Shakespeare uses men’s characters against themselves to show the merits and strengths of women. As Machiavelli once said, those who wish to be obeyed need first learn how to command. 

A Winter’s Tale, a tragedy, a love story, a series of wrongs righted - in short, a fairy tale. And in this fairy tale you have a prince, a princess, a wronged Queen and a King who has fallen prey to the demon of jealousy. The prince was loved, but at the incarceration of his beloved mother the Queen, he dies of a broken heart; the princess born into a world of woe, pain and darkness is taken from the arms of the Queen and cast away to a far-off land. This lovely young princess was left to fend for herself in a cold and unforgiving world. Fate herself, furious at the actions of the jealous King, sets a bear on the men who deserted our princess and devours them as punishment. Was this a fair and just punishment? Perhaps not for those men who delivered the child to this strange new land. But their deaths will play on the conscience of a merciless King. No mother would willingly give her child away, but what of a King? A King who believes that the child is not his, but that of another? It is a small mercy that he allowed her to live. Meanwhile, in a weakened state, after the birth of her daughter, the Queen is brought to trial where her innocence of adultery is proven with the help of the Oracle. The Oracle speaks of a terrible wrong that has been done and, in her grief, the Queen collapses and is believed dead. The death of his wife, son and the possible infanticide of his new-born child leaves the King alone to a state of cold, bitter regret. Our demon of jealous slinks away, having done his mischievous work. But what is more mischievous, the words of an Oracle having more weight than the words of a Queen? An Oracle being but a liminal entity in this fairy tale world; the Oracle isn’t exactly a sprite or a goblin, but why should the words of a woman be devalued against the otherness of magic? Why should mortality be held cheap against the otherness of that which cannot be seen? However, the price has now been paid. And a King without a Queen has no strength. It is now up to that slippery mistress called Time. Time comes and leads us to the future 16 years hence and our princess has blossomed into a young shepherdess, full of grace and charm and true to fairy-tale form she falls in love with the prince of the land. A prince who is prepared to incur the wrath of his own father to marry her. What is left for them to do when their want to marry is discovered? But run away back to the land where our Princess was born. Through luck and chance all is revealed, the Princess reunited with her father, the now penitent King and a Queen who, was thought dead, is miraculously still alive. Fate is a tricky mistress to tame and her anger cannot be sated with just blood. It is clear in this tale of tragedy and love that fate really likes to make people suffer. She is the unseen character in all of this; Shakespeare may be her unwitting foil, but my oh my! Hell, hath no fury like a woman scorned.