Though the story of Hermione is familiar because of the misogynist culture she is placed in, her characterization by the end of Act I in The Winter’s Tale is less concrete than the characterizations of other women in Shakespeare’s plays. I am left wondering how her character will develop. In Hamlet, Queen Gertrude is identified as wrong at the very start of the play for quickly marrying her brother-in-law. And we all feel for Lady Anne and Hermia when patriarchal powers encroach on their autonomy. Similar to Othello, the surrounding culture dictates the introduction to Hermione and makes it harder to make justly placed judgments about her. Othello’s identity is manipulated and reconstructed by the people of Venice before we even meet him. Though we meet Hermione in the first Act, we do not truly know her because her husband starts to doubt her fidelity and we become unsure. His doubts spread like an infection to the audience. When Leontes suddenly looses trust in her, the audience’s knowledge about Hermione suddenly goes into flux.
Once Leontes raises the possibility that she slept with Polixenes the audience might easily follows his doubts about whether she was ever faithful and whether the children she has are Leontes’s too. This helped me realize the power of the “aside.” We see Hermione being clever and probably just acting as a good hostess, but Leontes’s aside makes us feel like we are in on a secret. When her husband is narrating her actions he shapes how the audience perceives her. He creates a stage direction when he says they are “paddling palms and pinching fingers… making practiced smiles as in a looking glass and then… sigh” (1.2.115). We have access to Leontes’s inner thoughts, but not to Hermione’s. Does this make her less trustworthy?
We do not see physical evidence of her defiling her marriage in the opening act, so she is not looked at the same way we look at Hamlet’s mother. But we do see her pregnant belly and only hear the doubts of her husband, so she is not thought of as innocent or the victim like Lady Anne and Hermia were constructed to be.
At the end of Act I we encounter Camillo’s disbelief that counters Leontes’s jealousy and doubt. There are four more acts to go, will this begin a trend of other people who speak to Hermione’s honor, or will Leontes doubts become founded? The focalization, or perspectives, from characters seems to develop characterization and drive plot. What other perspectives might we get to sway our feelings about Hermione?
As I reflect on my post I wonder about my need to identify the character’s status. I have become aware of my impulse to label as I read Shakespeare. As soon as I meet a character I am asking myself villain, or protagonist? Is this person honorable, or are they shameful? With women the answer to this is very often wrapped up in their sexuality. As we discussed in class this is a symptom of the culture of misogyny.
The title of the play should be renamed to, “Everybody Loves Hermione” (except Leontes). Unlike some of Shakespeare’s other works, like Hamlet, where female characters were often hated for making immoral decisions, I had no such feelings toward Hermione. In fact, I believed in her innocence as much as all the other characters did. I’ve noticed that Shakespeare loved to make his characters jealous, or lead astray by either an antagonist, or some mental disorder (lunacy, love-sickness, etc.). I just thought that Leontes was overthinking things, and that he was just being self-conscious/jealous. With that being said, I didn’t take too much of what he said about Hermione to heart. What was most likely a friendly greeting, and engaging conversation between Hermione and Polixenes, was made out to be some kind of secret meeting between two lovers. Also the fact that nearly every other character in the show seemed to side with Hermione, or at least vouch for her innocence, showed me that she was obviously a well-respected and loved person.