According to Cavell, The Winter’s Tale is a dialogue on Skepticism, much like King Lear and Othello: yet another man seeking knowledge or access to a woman who he does not recognize as other, thus claiming a possession that is not his to claim, which so far has been a fatal miscalculation.[1] But this play is different as it shifts from the tragic Winter to a Spring of forgiveness, and (re)marriage as reconciliation.[2] Moreover, this is the first play where redemption is an option for its protagonist, The death of Mamillius seems to shroud Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, as the boy who gives the play its name is overcome by grief when his father separates him from his mother. In the end, all who are dead return to life, and all who are banished are restored; Except Mamillius. Mamillius demonstrates the conditions and reality of forgives or assurance as feminine, an antidote to Skepticism identified as Masculine.[3]
In the act of skeptic misrecognition of the Other, the complete being is split into two, and the Feminine or embodied/object is adjected (suppressed or removed) in favor of assuming that the other half -masculine knowledge/subject is all that can be known.[4] The Skepticism of Leontes is the discarding of that “weaker,” lesser, and unknowable feminine half- first in denying Hermione, and then in separating mother from son.[5] The play’s redemption is thus a dialogue on how to reconcile this tare, and how it is the woman -the feminine- that must restore this dichotomy through complete forgiveness that only she can grant to him.
In her Essay, Maternity and Absence in Shakespearean Romance, Helen Hopkins notes that Leontes identifies the reason why Mamillius must die to Hermione, saying, “Though he does bear some signs of me, yet you have too much blood in him.”[6] Leontes’ act in this scene is a misrecognition, Hopkins notes. This accusation of bastardy is a sign of the threat, “of the mother’s presence in the child: only the pure lineage of the father, uncontaminated by the mother, would guarantee legitimacy.”[7] This is the critique of the patriarchy, but also a dialogue on the dominance of the masculine over the feminine in the Cartesian model. In a symbolic sense, the feminine (the performative or bodily) is banished in favor of the masculine (knowledge and assurance) because the feminine represents a separateness that demands acknowledgment.
Leontes’ assurance is in his knowledge that Mamillius is his child and therefore his claim. It is no shock then that upon identifying Hermione’s (the feminine) presence in him (blood representing the bodily) that his knowledge is thrown into doubt. Cavell notes that his crisis is not the lack of knowledge but of too much:[8] Hermione’s presence in her son presents a threat to Leontes, where he must acknowledge his son, requiring a recognition that he has too much assurance/certainty in him. Further, Leontes begins to observe the actions of his wife as she talks with Polixenes, exclaiming, “too hot too hot!”[9] Through his patriarchal lens, any act of independence is a form of, or evidence towards adultery, as it is a rejection of the husbands claim on his wife.[10] This is evidenced in Laertes noting that her convincing of Polixenes was the second time she has, “spok’st to better purpose,”[11] the first being the acceptance of his proposal by saying “I am yours forever.”[12] In Leontes’ mind, this promise was an assurance/certainty of her submission to his ownership. But he is mistaken: his has misrecognized and seen too much.
Returning to Mamillius with this perspective, it is this reason that calls him to literally separate the son from the mother: “Bear the boy hence; he shall not come about her. Away with him.”[13] Following shortly after, he separates Hermione from himself noting, “If I mistake in those foundations which I build upon, the center is not big enough to bear a schoolboy’s top.”[14] The center is his authority and assurance. The masculine must be in control. But with only knowledges comes skepticism. Indeed, from this discord, his center -his foundation-cannot hold anything upon the doubt of his ownership over Hermione. So, while he asks the boy, “Are you my calf?” it is really a question of “do I still possess your mother? Did I even when you were conceived? Did I ever?” [15] He cannot answer this and it forces his hand in ordering for the son and mother to be separated: This is what kills Mamillius: the failure to be acknowledged tears him from his other half- the effeminate, bodily half: the mother.[16]
What then is the mother? According to Cavell, the Skeptic condition of the male/masculine is not a state experienced by the female/feminine, giving the example of Hermione who is pregnant. “The provenance of his children is not shared by his wife [...] it is internal to the doubt that it is taken against the wife, the mother,”[17] Further, to note that what the masculine doubts- in this case whether the child is his, is what the feminine is assured of.[18] While on one hand this is another play on the idea of horror at female sexuality and woman’s inaccessibility,[19] the “masculine knowing”[20] is always cast into doubt and skepticism by the feminine unknowable. Yet Hermione possesses something different from Desdemona and Cordelia: she is a mother. In her article, Female Agency and Solidarity in the Winter’s Tale, Stacey Mooney identifies her pregnancy as “the most obvious physical indication of the sexuality,” and “ the clearest evidence of the bodily autonomy.”[21] Psychoanalyst and philosopher Julia Kristeva discusses motherhood and its demand for recognition the greatest threat to the cartesian split and hierarchy.[22] A mother is, by the condition of her embodiment (the lack of control she possesses over the conception, development, and finally birth of a distinctive other) removed from the masculine confusion of ownership. As Cavell notes, “the mother has no such doubts”: she is assured in her motherhood.[23]
For Leontes, this is what possess him with doubt and jealousy: an embodied act entirely beyond his control, which coincides with Polixenes’ visit. The biological essentialism of the mother, who cannot be known- just as Leontes cannot know Hermione, demands acknowledgement, since no amount of knowledge can possess the mother. Leontes can never know, and therefore own her role of motherhood. But her can exterminate it. “Bear the boy hence,”[24] he says. For if the boy is separated and the daughter killed, Hermione’s motherhood- her feminine claim to acknowledgement is destroyed as well, and Leontes “claims” her again.
We see all this and wonder how this can be redeemed. But his redemption lay in the deconstruction of the masculine knowledge/assurance in Mamillius. Leontes does not immediately understand the gravity of his failure to acknowledge which abjected the feminine in both Mamillius and Hermione, as Beckwith notes his original proposal of penance: “The causes of the death of Hermione and Mamillius will be marked on their graves, and in visiting them he will constantly be faced with the mark of his own actions.”[25]. This proposal on the part of Leontes mimics the stoning of all the characters at the end of both Lear and Othello; the fate is marked on a grave- something cold and marked as a reminder,[26] is still the pervasive language of masculine knowledge. The beginning of this winter’s tale: winter as representing the masculine knowledge of frozen, stoned earth, gives way to the next 16 years. This essay skips to the next time we encounter Leontes and notice a change in his demeanor as the story gives way to spring: rebirth, forgiveness- the feminine. Paulina takes over as the voice and conductor of the dialogue on forgiveness. But it is Leontes that has had to alter to make was for her liturgical practice of restoration. He is now willing to listen to the feminine for however long it will take to gain forgiveness and redemption. It is Paulina who refuses to allow him to remarry, because “none are worthy,” and asks, “For has not the divine Apollo said [...] That King Leontes shall not have an heir Till his lost child is found?”[27] Paulina is playing the role of the memory: the necessary reminder of past wrong, this time not a mark grave (one thinks of meaningless reconciliation monuments, rather than taking actual action to alter peoples circumstances) but as a living, breathing- acknowledged- testimony to him to not forget.[28]
In the final act of The Winter’s Tale, Leontes is depicted as entirely humbled and repentant. “As now it Coldly stands- when first I wooed her. I am Ashamed. Does not the stone rebuke me for being more stone than it?”[29] He is the penitent in the priest’s home- he is required to empty himself- he must fully destone himself- which he does by inviting back the feminine in the form of Paulina. in the final, ritualizes transformation of Hermione, three ideas of Forgiveness as feminine are explored.
Firstly, the audience should be acutely aware that Mamillius is not present. Thus, forgiveness cannot reverse time, as we would like to think- it does not erase the past- at least not entirely. Instead, the role of Paulina is of restoration rather than reversal of hurt: Leontes was continually reminded through his forbiddance to remarriage of his wrongdoing. He has lost his assurance and has no heir, yet restoration came in the form of Hermione’s pregnancy, birthing a daughter (the feminine assurance) who now by the end of the play is to be married herself. She is to her father a character to be acknowledged- his recognition of her is just that. The feminine acknowledgement of his daughter restores Leontes assurance of an heir.[30]
Next, Hermione’s stoning and reawakening was not entirely Leontes’ doing. Paulina de-petrifies her, saying, “be stone no more.”[31] While we quickly assume that this is because of Leontes change of heart, that would be viewing forgiveness as reversal. Instead, Hermione Informs the viewer, “For thou shalt hear that I, knowing by Paulina that the oracle Gave hope thou wasn’t in being, have preserved myself to see the issue.”[32] Hermione had an autonomy in her turning to stone. This isn’t victim blaming, but rather an empowerment and reclaiming on the part of Hermione where forgiveness -de-stoning- must come from her first.
Finally, the language of forgiveness is orchestrated by Paulina in the play’s conclusion scene, only after Paulina is satisfied with the changes in Leontes’ behavior. If the feminine is the assurance to the masculine’s doubt,[33] then assurance- forgiveness- grace- is the role of the female. Mooney and Hopkins both debate whether Hermione’s reawakening was orchestrated or planned. Mooney seems to imply that this orchestration is the re-empowerment of the women, a plan in motion from the beginning, but that interpretation seems to weaken the redemption of forgiveness through acknowledgement which this scene is so rife with. “Leontes understands enough about the grammar of forgiveness to know that he cannot forgive himself.” Beckwith goes on, “Forgiving, then [...] requires the presence of others.”[34] The masculine knowledge is independent: the skeptics belief that they are alone. But the feminine assurance/forgiveness is not. The women require Leontes to change as much as he requires their re-acceptance.
Overall, the Winter’s Tale as a dialogue on forgiveness is demonstrated through the roles of the woman in the play. It is the mother that poses the greatest symbolic threat to the skeptic or masculine knowledge. It is the embodied feminine- through the role of motherhood that demands acknowledgement since she cannot be fully known or claimed by anyone. Mamillius represents the victim of the consequences when one attempts to separate the two in the act of misrecognition- essentially and fatally tearing him in two as he is torn from his mother or from his embodied self, cast in doubt by his father. It is in this that we see that the extension of forgives as an act of mutually reclaiming power through restorative acknowledgment as the masculine doubt is met with the feminine assurance. After all, as much as the Skeptic wishes it to be true, we are not independent isolated units. We come to be, only in relation to others.
[1] Stanley Cavell. Disowning Knowledge: in Seven Plays of Shakespeare (New York, Cambridge University Press 1987), 10. [2] Cavell, Disowning Knowledge, 18. [3] Cavell, Disowning Knowledge, 16. [4] Dr. Dawne McCance. “Psychoanalysis and Religion,” RLGN 2030 A01, University of Manitoba. Winter Term 2021. [5] Helen Hopkins. “Maternity and Absence in Shakespearean Romance,” Messages, Sages, and Ages, 3, 1 (2016): 22. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305892486_Maternity_and_Absence_in_Shakespearean_Romance [6] William Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale, ed. Stephen Orgel (New York, Oxford University Press, 1996) Act 2. Sc. 1. Line 57-59. [7] Hopkins, “Maternity and Absence,” 20. [8] Cavell, Disowning Knowledge, 196-197. [9] The Winter’s Tale, Act 1 Sc .2. Line 97. [10] Stacey K. Mooney. “‘More Free That He is Jealous’: Female Agency and Solidarity In The Winter’s Tale.” The Review: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Research, 20, 8 (2019): 2. https://fisherpub.sjfc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1270&context=ur [11] The Winter’s Tale, Act 1. Sc. 2. Line 86-90. [12] The Winter’s Tale, Act 1. Sc. 2. Line 103. [13] The Winter’s Tale, Act 2. Sc. 1. Line 59-60. [14] The Winter’s Tale, Act 2. Sc. 1. Line 100-103. [15] Cavell, Disowning Knowledge, 203. [16] Cavell, Disowning Knowledge, 194. [17] Cavell, Disowning Knowledge, 15. [18] Cavell, Disowning Knowledge, 16. [19] Cavell, Disowning Knowledge, 35. [20] Cavell, Disowning Knowledge, 10. [21] Mooney, “More Free That He is Jealous,” 2. [22] McCance, “Psychoanalysis and Religion,” 2021. [23] Cavell, Disowning Knowledge, 16-17. [24] The Winter’s Tale, Act 2. Sc. 1. Line 59. [25] Sarah Beckwith. Shakespeare And the Language of Forgiveness (London, Cornell University Press 2011), 133. [26] The Winter’s Tale, Act 3. Sc. 2. Line 233-238. [27] The Winter’s Tale, Act 5. Sc. 1. Line 34-40. [28] Beckwith, Shakespeare, 161. [29] The Winter’s Tale, Act 5. Sc. 3. Line 36-38. [30] Hopkins, “Maternity and Absence,” 24. [31] The Winter’s Tale, Act 5. Sc. 3. Line 98. [32] The Winter’s Tale, Act 5. Sc. 3. Line 125-128. [33] Cavell, Disowning Knowledge, 16-17. [34] Beckwith, Shakespeare, 133.
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