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.