The Winter's Tale (Act 5)

The Winter’s Tale – Act 5

            Here we are at last – the final act of the play, and boy was it a doozie. It was pretty obvious that most of us already knew Camillo would betray Prince Florizel and Perdita, but other than that I was pretty astounded by the ending of the play. What is ironic though, is that when I began reading the final act that I joked to myself how funny it would be if Hermione somehow came back to life, and then it happened! At first I thought that Paulina was being was too overbearing with the whole not having the King marry anyone else unless she were either Hermione or succeeded in being better than Hermione, however it makes more sense now that I’ve finished it. Yet, my question about this is how long did Paulina keep this secret, and how? If she had been keeping it from the time of Hermione’s so called “death” then I feel it would have been very difficult for her to hide, especially to Leontes as she watched him suffer so much. It is true what Leontes did was absolutely wrong and very horrible of him, but to be in that much pain for that long is truly something I would never wish upon someone including Leontes, as he repented for his sins for so long. It’s also somewhat confusing for me to determine whether or not Paulina has used some kind of witchcraft as she says, “Start not. Her actions shall be holy as / You hear my spell is lawful.” (5.3.104-05) Yet, she says before this to Leontes: “If you can behold it, / I’ll make the state move indeed, descend, / And take you by the hand. But then you’ll think—/ Which I protest against—I am assisted by wicked powers.” (5.3.87-91) The fact that she says this before but then refers to the bringing to life of Hermione as a spell causes a bit of confusion for me as stated before. In any case, the whole thing is insane, but of course only Shakespeare would come up with something crazy like this.

            Moving on to Perdita and Prince Florizel, we see them attempt to gain favor from Leontes in this act, but it doesn’t go over well as their plan is exposed by a Lord who has been told of what they intend to do by Camillo. In the end, it comes out to be a happy occasion as Leontes and Polixenes come to be loving brothers again, and Leontes says to the newly awakened Hermione: “This’ your son-in-law / And son unto the King, whom heavens directing / Is troth-plight to your daughter.” (5.3.150-52) At first I sat there and said to myself: “Aw, everything worked out!” But, then I remembered something – Leontes and Polixenes are brothers…which makes Florizel and Perdita cousins, and that’s when I just about puked. Okay, so Polixenes won’t let Florizel marry Perdita because she’s the “daughter” of a shepherd, but he’ll let him marry her after finding out it’s his niece?! There is seriously something wrong here…or with that time period…or with Shakespeare…or all three. I know that back in that time it was socially acceptable to do this, but I mean, come on, have some class, Shakespeare. Also, I’m pretty mad about Camillo considering he used poor Florizel and Perdita to gain access into Sicilia by ratting them out to Polixenes – how many selfish people do we even have in this play?! Ugh, and here I thought he would be a good guy. Nope. Of course not – and then everything just magically becomes ok at the end and everyone’s happy. I hate these kinds of endings – even Autolycus gets off scott-free, and the Clown says he’ll vouch for his trustworthiness even though he knows he isn’t! Seriously, Shakespeare – if you’re trying to teach us a lesson about forgiving and forgetting, then you’re doing it wrong. Just forgetting everything and freeing everyone of their actions does NOT help when trying to create a moral here. Anyway, I’m kind of displeased with the ending because of the latter as well as because I don’t think Hermione should have just miraculously come back into the picture after everything. However, it is what it is and at least we see Leontes learn his lesson in the end.

The Winter's Tale (Act 4)

The Winter’s Tale – Act 4

            The first scene in Act IV brings in the character of Time, which proceeds to tell the audience that from the end of the last act up until now 16 years have passed. It seems that Time is used as a character here to transition between both years passed as well as setting for the next scene as in 4.2 we find ourselves in Bohemia with Polixenes and Camillo. As for 4.2, it seems like this scene is also meant to be a sort of transition scene as Polixenes and Camillo speak of the shepherd who took in baby Perdita and how she’s grown, as well as that Prince Florizel has been occupying much of his time at the shepherd’s place. This is most likely used as a connector between the years and setting change as well, and also re-introduces Perdita into the story line.

            In 4.3 we’re introduced to a character named Autolycus who is a thief and a liar. To me, Autolycus reminds me right away of Iago from Othello, as he pretends to be a helpless and good man but in truth is a pickpocket just looking for money. Iago and Autolycus seem to be similar in these respects as both are quite the prevaricators, and use the lies and deception only to benefit themselves. Although Iago is not a thief, he is the man who takes Othello’s rationality away from him, which to me brings Iago and Autolycus even further together on the same playing field. However, Iago’s deception was to gain power, not money, and Iago also seems to have a much darker side to him, whereas Autolycus seems to be light of heart in his ways of thieving. When it comes to thinking up a costume for Autolycus, I would certainly put him in the “rags” we see partially depicted in this scene. He would most likely be wearing almost only undergarments at this point as he has been “robbed” and his clothes taken from him, I would think to see them fashioned with holes in them as well as no shoes or stockings/socks. At the very least he might have on trousers, a very thin shirt that is torn, and possibly an unruly looking hat (if it hadn’t been “stolen”).

            The last scene in Act 4 has A LOT going on from start to finish. There are several characters we could focus on, however I will choose to focus on Camillo and Autolycus.

At the start of 4.4, we see Camillo still desiring to return home to Sicilia, but serving Polixenes nonetheless. As the scene goes farther along, Camillo finds out that Prince Florizel has been posing as a shepherd named Doricles as Florizel wishes to marry a maiden of low status (supposedly) named Perdita. Florizel says that he would rather give up his royal title than be without Perdita, and upon hearing this Camillo begins planning how he might set Prince Florizel and Perdita up to go to Sicilia, and then tell Polixenes so that Camillo may follow after them in order to go home. By the end of 4.4, we see Camillo slowly but surely finding his way back to Sicilia through this deception, although we don’t see any further of his plan. It can be assumed that Camillo’s desires have been put into action at the very least at this point thanks to both the young and foolish Prince Florizel as well as his lovely Perdita. One of Camillo’s last statements before he exits the scene gives proof to much of this: “What I do next shall be to tell the King / Of this escape, and whither they are bound; / Wherein my hope is I shall so prevail / To force him after, in whose company I shall re-view Sicilia, for whose sight / I have a woman’s longing.” (4.4.645-50)

As for Autolycus, in the beginning of 4.4 we see him up to his tricks again as he enters the festival disguised as a musician selling good tunes to people. We know from 4.3 that Autolycus is a thief and liar, and this continues on in scene four as well, as he cheats the poor Clown as well as others, out of their money through his phony disguise. It is obvious that Autolycus believes he will once again get away with his scams, and, unfortunately, by the end of 4.4 he does. Yet, not only does he use the disguise of the musician to help him thieve, but also at the end of 4.4 we see him lie to Camillo and Florizel in order to obtain a small amount of money as well as Florizel’s clothes. Autolycus then uses the latter to his advantage as he overhears the Old Shepherd – who took Perdita in – and the Clown (the Shepherd’s son) talk about needing to see King Polixenes. Being the terrible person Autolycus is, he immediately snatches up this opportunity to make more money and convinces the Old Shepherd and the Clown that he is a courtier to the King, and thus can give them audience with Polixenes for the right price. Once again, Autolycus swindles innocent people and in the end meets his desires to continue his thievery for his own selfish accords. We are also left with this bit of information from Autolycus at the end of 4.4 as he says, “If I had a mind to be honest, I see fortune would not suffer me. She drops booties in my mouth.” (4.4.801-02) It can be seen then that Autolycus clearly has no intent on stopping his deceitful ways as if he did, surely he would not be as fortunate as he is now. Hopefully, he’ll get a taste of his own medicine – or some kind of justice would be nice too.

The Comedy of Errors - 1.1 & The Winter's Tale - Act 1

The Comedy of Errors – 1.1

In 1.1 of The Comedy of Errors, we learn that Egeon (a man from Syracuse) is being sentenced to death because he entered the market of Ephesus, which is prohibited by law for any Syracusian to do, and does not have the money to ransom himself. As Egeon tells it, he is a merchant who originally went to Epidamnum in order to claim and take care of the untended goods left by his agent after his agent’s death. However, his wife ended up having to follow him there because she was six months pregnant with twins, and did not want to be alone anymore. She gave birth to her twins in Epidamnum, and not too long after, a woman of low birth also gave birth to twins. Because the latter woman could not afford to take care of two baby boys as, “their parents were exceeding poor,” (1.1.56) Egeon bought the boys from her so that he could raise them to attend to his boys later on in life. Not too long after, Egeon’s wife wished to return home, and so they began their journey back only to encounter a horrible storm at sea which made their ship drown, and forced them to try and survive by tying themselves and the boys onto masts. Fortunately, they were all saved, but by two separate ships as Egeon had tied himself and his boy and his slave boy to one mast, and his wife and the other boy to another. Egeon and his son therefore has been searching for a long time now to find his wife and other son, and has gone from city to city searching for them, which is how he wound up in Ephesus. It seems to me that this story will be about Egeon trying to raise enough money within the day to free him from death, and then possibly finding his son along the way.

The Winter’s Tale – Act I

The relationship between Hermione and Polixenes is an interesting one to me. Polixenes is the brother to Leontes (who is husband to Hermione), yet there seems to be something going on between Polixenes and Hermione behind Leiontes’s back. In one instance, we see that Leontes, Polixenes’s own brother, cannot persuade Polixenes to stay for another week with them, yet, when Hermione asks him to stay Polixenes accepts with putting up only a meager fight to her wishes. Around line 110 in 1.2, we see Hermione give her hand to Polixenes, and the two are described as “paddling palms and pinching fingers,” (1.2.117) by Leontes. This certainly denotes that something could possibly be going on behind Leontes’s back seeing as the hand was seen as a very sexual part of the body back in the time of Shakespeare. Yet, the tone that goes back and forth between Hermione and Polixenes is one where Hermione is the commander (more or less) and Polixenes is the receptor who does as she pleases, which strikes me as odd considering that women were supposed to have less power over men that Hermione seems to have over Polixenes.

As for the relationship between Hermione and Leontes, it comes to be known that Leontes doesn’t truly trust Hermione as he sees how she gives Polixenes her hand, as well as the way she has command over him, which is something he doesn’t even have. A little later into 1.2, we see Leontes again accuse Hermione of being involved with his brother as he says aside, “How she holds up the neb, the bill to him, And arms her with the boldness of a wife, To her allowing husband!” (1.2.184-86) Leontes says in the latter basically that he sees the way she holds up her face and lips to him, wishing secretly to be kissed by Polixenes through her actions. It is also clear, however, that Hermione seems to know she is being bold in her actions through the way we see Leontes speak of this instance, and pursues Polixenes even though she seems to know that Leontes knows of her intentions. Yet, Leontes keeps his tone towards her steady and happy, and doesn’t seem to let on to his knowing through his tone at least.  However, one thing that I wasn’t too sure about was whether or not Leontes is questioning if Mamillius is truly his son or not, or if Hermione had a previous affair with his brother and ended up having his child, but saying that it was Leontes’ to keep it a secret. I’m just guessing on that one, and maybe I’m reading too into it, but it kind of seemed like it with the way Leontes was talking to Mamillius around the middle of 1.2.

Anti-Blog Prompt: Celebrity Edition

Anti-Blog Prompt: Celebrity Edition

So, tonight’s just one of those nights that I can’t seem to focus completely on anything, which means that while I was reading Act V, I kept thinking about a certain “celebrity”. Although I haven’t always viewed him this way, now that I think back to it the “celebrity” that I picked for Achilles certainly does fit. And, here he is:

That’s right, it’s Scar from “The Lion King”. I personally consider Scar a celebrity even though he isn’t an actual person, mainly because he is so notorious amongst several evil villains. As soon as I began Act V, (for whatever reason) I thought of Achilles as the Scar of Troilus and Cressida. I think it has something to do with how Thersites called Achilles the “idol of idiot-worshippers,” (5.1.6-7) although it also could have something to do with the fact that Achilles really is one of the only truly mean spirited people in the play, which brings me into the next part where I see Achilles as Scar:

This image immediately popped into my head as soon as I saw Achilles and his Myrmidons walk into the place that Hector was, because I knew at that point that Achilles was going to kill Hector, even though he was unarmed. I mean, come on, Achilles; Hector even let you live when you were bested! But, no, of course you can’t just say “Bless you, Hector, for you spare me even though I am the foulest devil” and walk away…nope, you have to kill the poor dude. Scar killing Mufasa at this point resembles almost exactly how I felt when I read that Achilles was going to kill Hector: furious, and ready to push Achilles off a cliff into a stampede of wildebeests (or in this case maybe Myrmidons). For me, Achilles certainly does fit the profile of Scar: ruthless, his own leader, and an absolute dick-wad. Anyway, that’s my celebrity edition, and, oh, wait! I forgot to say this earlier about Act V…OMG THEY’RE ACTUALLY FIGHTING!!! Yeah, I think that should about do it. Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more lovely sassiness.

P.S. If you hadn’t already figured out who Achilles’ Myrmidons are in relation to Scar and “The Lion King”, here are a few pics for you:

Before battle...

Going into battle...

Saluting Achilles like idiots (and a personal favorite)...