The master craftsman, William Shakespeare, in his Othello and The Winter’s Tale portrays some curious facets of femininity, maybe deliberately or not. Desdemona in Othello is a Venetian beauty with astute and resolute individuality, while Hermione in The Winter’s Tale is mysterious and majestic. When we take the reality aspect, the former is more realistic and true to life, which has implications even in this modern present. The latter is to an extent unreal, and somewhat fantasy. Character is everything in Shakespeare’s plays; the works have no existence apart from the characters. In Shakespeare’s plays, no character is evitable, the omission of any character results in a huge gap though hypothetical. But the importance given to these two women characters, in the Elizabethan age is surprising. The film adaptations, onstage performances and hundreds of yet to come out discourses on these two characters signify their importance. Some of Shakespearean women are his means to teach Anne Hathaway how to treat him, critics often remark. We can see such pieces of advice in Desdemona and Hermione also, if we read keeping Shakespearean marital life in mind.
Thesis Statement
Desdemona and Hermione are victims of love, the former falls eternally while the latter regains. Desdemona is the wife of Othello, an old not-so-handsome warrior. Hermione is the wife of King Leontes of Sicilia. The love both these women get from their husbands is blind and hardcore, the intensity of which later results in reminding them about their mortality. They, unawares open to their husbands, their pleas favoring the latter’s assumed enemies. The repeated proposals and some pathetic consequents lead the husbands put an end to the life with their loving wives. “Desdemona’s death is eternal; it makes the play purely tragic” (Gerwig). Othello’s (her husband) revelation that she was innocent pushes him commit suicide towards the end of the play too, hence, closes the love story forever. Hermione in The Winter’s Tale is the protagonist of a tragedy – turned- comedy. She is not physically killed by her husband, but his anger takes her near death by an unnecessary imprisonment. He receives information that her life in prison culminates in her death, though he does not commit suicide out of his grief, instead becomes repentant. At the end of the play, the statue of Hermione comes to life, to everybody’s amazement. The play closes with a note of the chord.
These two love stories undergo severities, only one survives. Desdemona’s love for Othello is questioned by the latter, she fails to convince him. As his love for the young wife was mad, he subsequently kills her out of an impulse. Her love sees an ideal tragic fall. Hermione and Leontes are less passionate than the former couple, however their love is restored at the end of the play.
Comparison and Contrast
Desdemona in Othello is a lady of vigor, intelligence, individuality and spirit. She is a daddy’s girl till she falls for Othello the adventurous warrior (Gerwig ). She does not get enticed by the outer beauty and pomp of a person, but the cult and vigor. Othello, though not appealing to eyes of others, ensnares the beautiful Desdemona with his tales of adventure. She wants her husband to be free of any accusations and despise. She is the most straightforward, open and true-to-word speaker of the play. Desdemona’s reason for loving an unappealing warrior is to the highest possible extent crisp, and shows she falls for valor. She says: That I did love the Moor to live with him My downright violence and storm of fortunes May trumpet to the world. My heart's subdued Even to the very quality of my lord. I saw Othello's visage in his mind, And to his honor and his valiant parts Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate. So that, dear lords, if I be left behind, A moth of peace, and he go to the war, The rites for which I love him are bereft me And I a heavy interim shall support By his dear absence. Let me go with him (Othello 1.3.283-294).
Her father believes that, “I think this tale would win my daughter too” (Othello 1.3. 171). He knows valor can win Desdemona’s heart.
“Besides, she is sympathetic too. She is ready to plead for Cassio’s reinstatement as the lieutenant as Cassio requests her help. Since she is a woman of her words, she at times reminds her husband of reinstating Cassio. This sympathy and firmness can be taken as the flaws of Desdemona, because these result in her tragic fall” (Götz ). She has no idea that her husband is, under the instigation of Iago, suspicious of her and Cassio having an affair. The somewhat mad love Othello has, for Desdemona later makes him kill her, accusing a whore. At the end of the play, Othello learns that everything prompted him to hate Cassio and Desdemona was tricks played by Iago, but he had lost his faithful wife in the meantime. Desdemona’s death frees her of all tribulations, but puts an end to a true love. She is one of the best examples of an ideal tragic hero(ine), born and brought up in a well off family, having good manners and character, and whose flaws result in her own tragic fall.
Hermione is a majestically sweet woman, of dignity without pride. She is more feminine. Her feelings are controlled, limited and yet impulsive. Like Desdemona, she pleads for someone her husband vies. Her request to King of Polixenes to stay with them and the King’s acceptance make her husband grow suspicious of the two. Her husband was an irrational superstitious king, as he believed his pregnant wife is bearing someone else’s child. She is patient, like a saint, who disarms arguments with unequalled simplicity. Lentils accuses Hermione of being infidel, which breaks her morale. He accuses her without any justifiable reason. Suspicion is in his blood, but her reply is with dignity, as:
Should a villain say so, The most replenish'd villain in the world, He were as much more villain; you, my lord.Do but mistake. (The Winter’s Tale 1. 2. 166)
She knows the circumstances of the accusations are unpardonable and devoid of any reason. As a solution, she goes in concealment. Her concealment for sixteen years from the husband to gain justice is also dignified. As the Oracle of Delphi comes to prove her faithful and innocent, the King feels guilty and grave. But to the King’s dismay, Paulina reports that the queen is dead of grief. The purported death and disappearance of the queen makes the king heartbroken, as he realizes it is his mistake. Hermione and her tactics make her husband say the following:
Chide me, dear stone! that I may say indeed Thou art Hermione; or rather thou art she In thy not chiding, for she was as tender As infancy and grace (The Winter’s Tale 5. 3. 411).
The two characters differ much in certain aspects while are so similar in certain others. Both are majestic, dignified, elegant, elite and women of their words. “Desdemona is a lady of spirit and intelligence” (Character Analysis Desdemona). She is comparatively more stern and firm than Hermione, as she is more prone to react as the situation demands. But luck stands alongside Hermione, and distress with Desdemona. Both fail in coping with ill-tempered husbands, who are impulsive and prejudiced. Desdemona is more flexible in temper than Hermione, the latter’s plight is unreasonable. Othello’s suspicion has certain grounds, as he is instigated by the cunning Iago and some circumstances. Desdemona’s reasoning for the lost handkerchief fails to convince her husband. Even though Emilia stands on her side, Othello accuses her of being infidel. Othello’s plans to kill her, and she clearly asserts her innocence, the assertions still fail to register in the prejudiced Othello’s mind. Her love for Othello is blind and she expects him to offer her the same. The imprudent innocence of Desdemona is what gives her such a punishment, we can figure out. In judgment, Hermione stands above Desdemona. She somehow manages to convince her husband of her innocence, though it took sixteen years.
When we think about the fruitfulness of the two love tales; Desdemona’s love returns her with her failure or fall while Hermione’s love is restored after sixteen years. Desdemona stays with her husband, goes in voyage along with him, maybe that infuriates him since Cassio also was with him. The separation of sixteen years makes Leontes grow fonder for Hermione and more realistic. Maybe Shakespeare is suggesting that separation makes love stronger.
Shakespeare’s portrayal of femininity- at two distinct levels
The age of William Shakespeare was a bit dark, as Dr. Johnson points out in his Preface to the Plays of William Shakespeare, which is ostensible in these two plays:
Shakespeare’s plays are not in the rigorous and critical sense either tragedies or comedies, but compositions of a distinct kind; exhibiting the real state of sublunary nature, which partakes of good and evil, joy and sorrow, mingled with endless variety of proportion and innumerable modes of combination; and expressing the course of the world, in which the loss of one is the gain of another; in which, at the same time, the reveller is hasting to his wine, and the mourner burying his friend; in which the malignity of one is sometimes defeated by the frolic of another; and many mischief and many benefits are done and hindered without design (Johnson et al. p. 17).
Othello preceded The Winter’s Tale, the former came out in 1603 while the latter posthumously in 1623. The difference between the ages can be seen in the portrayal also. Unnecessarily innocent Desdemona, the femininity, turns out to be a more judgmental, common Hermione. Desdemona’s death is an end to her sufferings, end to her being misjudged as a whore, end to her being wrongly deciphered; while, Hermione’s death (purported death) is a tool to gain justice, make the time answer her question, prove her chastity. Death is characterized differently in both these plays. We may assume that Shakespeare might have used death as a tool, as his vision changed, the perspective shifted. Death aids Hermione in regaining her life, while drags Desdemona to void. Though Othello realizes she was chaste, Desdemona does not feel any benefits from that realization.
Femininity and its portrayal differ largely in these two plays; that might be because of the differing mood. Othello is a tragedy and hence death became tragic. Desdemona is a victim to the intense love of her husband and death. Hermione also is a victim to the love of her husband, but she uses death as a tool to reveal the truth. An antagonist as cunning as Iago is absent in The Winter’s Tale and so everything goes as planned by Hermione (Gerwig). Femininity is subdued, even though Desdemona is majestic, in Othello; it fails to make its opponent answer and gain deserved justice. The same aspect of human race is a bit more dominant in the latter play; at least it manages to gain justice after sixteen years. Although the events seem to be unreal, the mood prevails throughout the play. Abandoning a child reminds the readers of ancient Greek tales, like that of Oedipus. The unity of time is violated in the play so as to bring in ample measures for Hermione to withstand, it is hence justifiable.
A reader experiences catharsis out of two different temperaments, climaxes of the plays differ that much in their magnitude. Some critics categorize The Winter’s Tale as a later Shakespearian romance. Love is present in both of them; it victimizes the second(ary) sex (thanks Kate Millett) in both the plays. Love in both is blind and obscure too. “Femininity and love at times do not go hand in hand, women are sometimes more tempted to blind love,” William Shakespeare gives the reader such a message through both the plays (Chan). Moreover, both the plays portray love’s life’s lost, if we take William Shakespeare’s own words.
Works Cited
Shakespeare, William, David M. Bevington, and Barbara Gaines. Othello. Naperville, IL: Source MediaFusion, 2005. Print.
Shakespeare, William, and F. E. Pierce. The Winter's Tale. New Haven: Yale UP, 1918. Print.
Shakespeare, William, and Charles Jarvis Hill. Six Plays of Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet; Richard II; As You like It; All's Well That Ends Well; Othello; The Winter's Tale. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1964. Print.
Shakespeare, William, and David Foulds. Othello and Other Stories from Shakespeare's Plays. Hong Kong: Oxford UP, 1993. Print.
Johnson et al. The Plays of William Shakespeare: In Eight Volumes. London: Printed for J. and R. Tonson, et al., 1765. Print.
Götz, Beatrice. Shakespeare 2010. Aarau: NKS, 2010. Print.
Morrison, Toni, and Rokia Traoré. Desdemona. London: Oberon, 2012. Print.
Gerwig, George William. Shakespeare's Hermione: A Shakespearean Story of a Steadfast Wife. East Aurora, NY: Roycroft Shops, 1929. Print.
Chan, Emily Lai-yee. Othello and the Winter's Tale: Shakespeare's Different Portraits of Jealous Love. N.p.: n.p., 1999. Print.
"Character Analysis Desdemona." Cliffnotes. Cliffnotes.com, n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2016. <http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/o/othello/character-analysis/desdemona>.
