In diesem Essay wird Paulina, eine Figur aus Shakespeares "The Winter's Tale" kurz beschrieben und ihr Verhalten gegenüber den männlichen Figuren, insbesondere Leontes, analysiert. Sie ist nicht der typische Frauencharakter, den man erwarten würde. Die Gründe für diesen Eindruck werden hier nun näher beleuchtet.
This essays deals with Paulina, a character in Shakespeare's "The Winter's Tale". Her behaviour towards the male figures is described shortly before her speech and interaction with the other characters, especially with Leontes, the King of Sicily, are analysed in depth. She is not 'the typical woman' and this essay tries to provide some possible reasons.
Witch, priestess, suffragette - there are many terms which can be used to describe Paulina, a character from William Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale. However, she certainly would not be called a submissive woman. But from where does the audience in the theatre gain this impression?
Paulina enters for the first time in Act 2.2, having only been mentioned before by her husband Antigonus (2.1.134-138). She appears with her servants in front of the prison and demands to speak with Hermione. The jailer refuses, but offers to fetch Emilia, the queen’s woman-in-waiting, if Paulina dismisses her attendants. She complies and the ground for the following action is laid. Paulina acts independently: she is rational, courageous and enraged by Leontes’ unjust behaviour. She promises to do her best to convince him of Hermione’s innocence. Although a woman -a biological fact even more highlighted through the addresses directed at her- Paulina’s readiness to cross gender-divisions are already perceptible. She herself speaks of wit (2.2.51) and honour (2.2.64) to emphasize her willingness to battle Leontes. Shakespeare depicts Paulina in this scene in the chivalric tradition of a knight whose duty it is to right all wrongs and protect the innocent.
In 2.3 she dares even more when she confronts Leontes with his newborn daughter. Here, Paulina’s behaviour is defined through her relationships with Antigonus and Leontes and therefore also compared to the accepted female manners in the Renaissance. The outcome is not favourable for her and Leontes voices his horror in terms of utter disgust. Antigonus tries to put a foot in (2.3.30) and hinder Paulina in her actions but after that he steps aside: she is allowed to begin her verbal fencing with Leontes and masters this challenge with brilliance. When the king is first aware of her presence, he directs his rage at Antigonus[1] and calls Paulina “that audacious lady” (2.3.42). Obviously, she is known at court for her sense of justice and her husband has to shield himself from the king’s accusations that he has set her on this deed. But Paulina, too, is quick to defend her husband and answers Leontes’ reproach that her husband cannot rule her unless he commits the same crimes as the king. In exchange, Antigonus compares his wife with a horse, a noble, gracious animal (2.3.51-52). He leaves his wife to her self-enjoined task. In her following two speeches (2.3.52-58 and 2.3.59-61), Paulina mentions typical male professions like “servant”, “physician” and “counsellor” to define her relationship with Leontes and even lets him know that she would challenge him to defend Hermione’s honour if she were a man. Regarding contemporary stage conditions, this interjection of a man playing a woman wishing to be a man might have been comic in the Renaissance as no English women were allowed to perform. In this respect from the audience’s point of view transvestite cross-dressing was involved, but in the play itself Paulina is only cross-talking and, as it were, severely rebuked by Leontes. He calls her “Dame Partlett” (2.3.75), “crone” (2.3.76), “a callet of boundless tongue” (2.3.90-91), “dam” (2.3.94), “Lady Margery” (2.3.159) and “lewd-tongued wife” (2.3.171). These terms imply a certain view of women in the Renaissance to which Leontes alludes here. All refer to feminine verbal aggressiveness and have their respective literary examples in the time. The tongue was considered as women’s natural weapon against men and used too often in the latters’ opinion, regardless of the cause. George Webbe for example calls the female tongue “too sharp” in comparison to the male tongue which is “bitter”[2] but necessary. Another literary tradition is involved as well: that of gossiping women which often rage against their husbands and men in general.[3] So Leontes is denying that gender boundaries are fluid. He takes his accusations even one step further when he addresses Paulina as “a most intelligencing bawd” (2.3.68), “a callet” (2.3.90) and a “midwife” (2.3.159). With these terms the king expresses his willingness to implicate her also in the unjust charges against his wife. For him she is guilty of helping Hermione and Polixenes to commit adultery. Paulina defends herself and the Queen against Leontes’ mad ravings, hence lining up the two of them in a small row of female figures who stick together against male tyranny: literary forerunners are Phillip’s Grissil[4] and her nurse as well as Shakespeare’s Desdemona and Emilia.[5] But while all these accusations do not necessarily imply gender-transgression, one of the earlier ones in this scene does it with a force which consequently also raises questions about Antigonus’ status as a man: after having called Paulina “a mankind witch” (2.3.67), the king also swears at her husband (2.3.73-74 and 2.3.108-09) and –in the eyes of the audience- reduces him to something like a fop and a man under the thumb of his wife. “As she assumes more and more the qualities ascribed to the male, he assumes more and more the weaknesses supposedly characterizing the female.”[6] In the Renaissance, this kind of effeminate man was considered to be as condemnable as the mannish woman. Some years after The Winter’s Tale two essays were published which can be regarded as the height of this social and literary discussion: Hic Mulier and Haec Vir.[7] The controversy about men and women wearing clothes pertaining to the respective other sex began in the 1570s and was marked with literary milestones like George Gascoigne’s The Steele Glas in 1576 or Phillip Stubbe’s Anatomy of Abuses in 1583. The combat over the costume of the sexes came to a standstill between the 1590s and early 1600s, but flared anew around 1606 with Henry Parrot’s The Movs Trap and Richard Niccols’s The Cuckow. “From then, the movement gained monumentum, public and literary interest in it climaxing between 1615 and 1620.”[8] In those years, women in men’s clothing could be seen in the streets and men who dressed overly brilliantly were regarded as becoming effeminate and called fops. Nevertheless, Hic Mulier and Haec-Vir were not only directed at an exchange of clothing, but also at the gender transgressions emanating from a change in behaviour. Remarkably, the “mankind” woman in Haec-Vir is partly defended by the anonymous author, as Woodbridge explains, through “characterizing her behaviour as a response to male effeminacy: somebody has to wear the breeches.”[9] When the lords prove too docile to assist Paulina, she realizes that she must face the king alone. As a result, she is not only called “mankind”, Leontes adds another insult: “witch”. This term refers to another image of women. King James I. himself wrote about magicians and witches in his book Daemonologie. He presents it as a dialogue between Philomathes and Epistemon, the latter answering questions about magic, witchcraft and spirits by the former and thereby also explaining these dark and secret matters to the reader. As described by James or rather his Alter Ego Epistemon, magic and necromancy have to be separated from sorcery and witchcraft, simply because magic is performed out of curiosity, but only by men, whereas witchcraft, performed only by women, serves either to gain fortune or to exact revenge. The magician is commander of the Devil; the witch is subordinate to the lord of Hell. It can be inferred that magicians were regarded at least, although not totally in a positive light, as only satisfying their curiosity. Witches are pure evil and “their whole practises are either to hurte men and their gudes, […], for satisfying of their cruell mindes in the former, or else […], to satisfie their greedie desire in the last poynt.”[10] Shakespeare’s intentions what goes on in Leontes’ mind when he accuses his wife of adultery, casts out his baby daughter and insults Paulina, can only be guessed. But according to Leontes, Antigonus’ wife surely is the worst and most evil he can think of: a “mankind witch” which has to be punished and burnt. Only when Antigonus, a male, bows to his will, Leontes pardons Paulina.
[...]
[1] One might wonder if the latter’s unusual death can partly be regarded as heavenly punishment for not ruling his wife properly.
[2] Both taken from: George Webbe The Araignment of an Unruly Tongue.
[3] Cp. women’s gossiping in Rowlands Tis Merrie when Gossips meete, during which the widow explains her positive attitude towards maiden- and widowhood and her contempt against marriage.
[4] John Phillip The Commodye of Pacient and Meeke Grisill.
[5] William Shakespeare Othello.
[6] Dash (1981), p. 146.
[7]Hic Mulier attacks women who wear masculine clothes and Haec-Vir shows up male fops.
[8] Woodbridge (1984), p. 141.
[9] Woodbridge (1984), p. 147.
[10] James I., Daemonologie, p. 35.
- Quote paper
- Stephanie Schnabel (Author), 2005, Paulina - witch, shrew or obedient wife?, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/50337
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