rationalize Leontes irrational jealousy by differences of age or race between him and his wife. He also doesnt explain it with any imprudent conduct by Hermione. Rather, Shakespeare completely refuses to excuse Leontes jealous tyranny. The characters surrounding Leontes also hold him accountable. They beg him to realize his folly. When he persists in it, Leontes is ruthlessly punished. He loses his best friend Polixenes, his advisors Camillo and Antigonus, his son Mamillius, his daughter Perdita, and, of course, Hermione. Leontes eventually regains the love of Polixenes, Camillo, Perdita, and Hermione, but Antigonus, Mamillius, and sixteen wasted years are lost forever. Leontes is Shakespeares admonition to Elizabethan men; he warns them that unreasonably jealous husbandseven kingscan lose everything.The characters in The Winters Tale also differ from their counterparts in King John in that they do not take a charge of adultery lightly. When King Leontes suspects his wife of cheating on him, he threatens to have her burned at the stake, saying, Say that she were gone,/ Given to the fire, a moiety of my rest/ might come to me again (2.3.7-9). At her trial, he tells Hermione, thou/ Shalt feel our justice, in whose easiest passage/ Look for no less than death (3.2.89-91). Clearly, the characters in The Winters Tale hold their wives much more responsible for their actions than do those in King John. It is obvious from these two examples that in the fourteen to seventeen years between King John and The Winters Tale, Shakespeares view of family relationships changed drastically. He originally accepted the status quo. He treated the patriarchal family hierarchy, with its distrust of wives fidelity, as both natural and reasonable. However, later in life, Shakespeare came to challenge prevailing opinion. The families he depicted were more egalitarian and less hierarchal in nature. Also, he derided overly jealous husbands like Le...
