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Essay Q&A
more sophisticated argument, as one might expect, but Perdita shows she is
not intimidated. She sticks to her intuitive beliefs about what is natural and what
is not.
3. Write a character sketch of Hermoine.
At the outset of the play, Hermoine shows herself to be gracious and friendly.
She declares her love for Leontes quite spontaneously, and she is charming
toward Polixenes, as she is required to be, since Polixenes is a guest at the
Silesian court. She engages him in a conversational topic that she rightly
assumes will be pleasing to him. Hermoine also has a sense of humor, as she
shows when she jokes with Leontes (Act 1, scene 2, lines 90-101). In this scene
she is altogether beyond reproach.
After Hermoine is accused by Leontes, her first reaction is that he must be
joking. After that, she reveals more of her positive qualities. She does not lash
out at Leontes or blame him. She simply points out to him that he has made a
mistake. She explains the adverse situation she finds herself in by means of
astrology; it must be caused by an "ill planet" and she must be patient until the
bad influence passes. Hermoine exudes strength and dignity when she is
hauled off to prison, even giving courage to her maids, telling them not to weep.
There is no spirit of vengeance in her, only a calm, stoical endurance, and a
belief that her innocence will be established. At the trial, she shows great faith,
stating her belief that the gods will vindicate her.
The attitude of the other characters is also testimony to Hermoine's character.
The words of a minor character, a Lord, are typical: "For her, my lord, / I dare lay
my life down, and will do't, sir," he says to Leontes (Act 2, scene 1, lines 12930). No one other than Leontes has a bad word to say about Hermoine, and
Paulina is moved to defend her with all the energy she has.
4. What are the Unities and why does Shakespeare violate the unities of
time and place?
The unities were principles of dramatic structure adopted by European
dramatists during the sixteenth to eighteenth century. The principles were
developed from the thought of Aristotle. The first unity was that of action (there
should be no subplots); the second unity was that of place: a play should take
place in only one location; the third unity was that of time: the action should take
place over a period of only one day. Although Shakespeare was never
especially concerned with observing the unities, in A Winter's Tale, his departure
from two of them is particularly noticeable. He violates the unity of time by
having the action extend over a sixteen-year period, and he violates the unity of
place by setting the first three acts in Silesia and most of the last two acts in
Bohemia. Perhaps the reason that he did this was because he wanted to
directly show the effects of actions over a long period of time. He wanted to
bring attention to how, over time, nature heals the wounds that humans inflict on
themselves. By introducing the character of Time, as the chorus, at the
beginning of Act 4, he deliberately draws attention to the passage of time.
Another of Shakespeare's late plays, The Tempest, also shows the effects of
actions over a long period of time, but in that play Shakespeare observes the
unities. The long-ago events of the past that led up to the situation in the
present is simply recalled by Prospero in the exposition, and the actual events
of the play occur in only one day. Neither method could be called right or wrong,
or more or less effective; they are simply different approaches to telling a story.