“My plight requires it”: Women’s Bodily Transformations in The Winter’s Tale
Shakespeare rarely wrote pregnant characters. His plays are filled with mother-child relationships, but of the 37, only four plays feature pregnancy and labor. Pregnancy then was complicated: It was tedious to stage a pregnant player, especially since all the characters were performed by boys and men, but it was also understood vastly different than it is today. When it came to how reproduction works, scholar Mary Fissell tells us:
“The insides of women’s reproductive bodies provided a kind of open interpretative space, a place where many different models of reproductive processes might be plausible. These models were profoundly shaped by cultural concerns; they afforded many ways to discuss and make sense of social, political, and economic changes.”
Shakespeare’s pregnant characters embody this notion that pregnancy is about more than simple reproduction. The monarch at the time was Queen Elizabeth I who famously never married and remained “virginal” as she never bore children. When she dies in 1603, she dies heirless. Dr. Sara Theil suggests it was the “anxieties over Elxiabeth’s failure to produce an heir that made it so that representation of pregnant bodies was rare.” They were rare, but not totally absent and their stage presence always had more to say.
The Winter’s Tale is one of Shakespeare’s later plays; it was probably written in 1611, but published in the First Folio in 1623. This play has many overlapping themes — geography, time, monarchy — but, in totality, this play covers the bodily transformations a woman is expected to go through. A woman’s body transforms many times: From childhood, to womanhood, to (in the case of this play) queenhood, to motherhood, to death. This is the path charted for most women, but The Winter’s Tale disrupts this. Hermione, the central character, begins as a traditional woman going through these transformations, but, just like Elizabeth, Hermione subverts this expectation.
We begin the play with Hermione pregnant. Hermione has already gone through several transformations up to this point: She was the daughter of the Emperor of Russia before marrying Leontes and taking on the transformation of queen. She is also already a mother, having given birth to a son, Mamillius. At the start of the play, she is undergoing the transformation of motherhood again.
She’s considered “round” and is carrying a “goodly bulk.” Leontes chimes in claiming “She’s big with,” which I suggest alludes to not only her trimester, but a lack of culpability. The emphasis is on her being big and dissociates himself from the pregnancy. Leontes doesn’t think the unborn child is his. In fact, he thinks the true father is his childhood best friend, Polixenes. While there’s hardly any evidence to support this claim, Leontes is convinced and, in a fit of rage, imprisons Hermione. While in prison, Hermione gives birth.
Hermione’s labor is not shown onstage. Like many “graphic” scenes, the birth happens offstage and is reported to the audience through side characters. Paulina, one of Hermione’s ladies, asks Emilia, a maidservant, how “fares” their “gracious lady.”
With a sigh, Emilia answers, “As well as one so great and so forlorn may hold together.” Emilia’s voice softens before she continues, “On her fright and griefs, she is something before her time delivered.” Hermione has given birth prematurely.
Paulina’s eyes widen, “A boy?” she asks quickly.
Emilia smiles softly, “A daughter, and a goodly babe, lusty and like to live.”
The women rejoice at the birth of a princess and believe she will convince Leontes to reconsider, but he is only more enraged and demands the baby be killed. The next time we see Hermione, she is no longer pregnant and she is no longer a mother, at least this is what she and Leontes believe. Stricken by the news of his mother, Mamillius falls ill. Soon after, Mamillius is dead, having taken a “good rest tonight” as reported by the servant. What was once at center stage — Hermione’s motherhood — was now glaringly absent. Just as it was for Elizabeth.
But Hermione’s body has not completed all its transformations. Where Elizabeth failed, Hermione will succeed. We’re to believe that Leontes’ sentences her to death for her alleged adultery. We do not see Hermione die. Then there is a 16-year-gap — another rarity in Shakespeare’s works — during which time, Leontes realizes he was wrong and commits to mourning his dead family as atonement. As a tribute, a statue of Hermione is erected. Paulina oversaw the creation of the statue and its placement — conveniently in her personal gallery. When the piece is complete, she gathers the court for the revealing. Leontes, Perdita, Polixenes, and other members reunite for this unveiling.
Grabbing the curtain draped over the statue, smiling wryly, Paulina announces: “Prepare to see the life as lively mocked as ever still sleep mocked death.” In one fluid motion, Paulina reveals Hermione’s stone body. Leontes is awestruck.
“Her natural posture!” He finally manages, tears springing to his eyes. “Chide me, dear stone, that I may say indeed thou art Hermione.” He circles the statue, taking in the likeness to his late queen. But something is…off. Leontes takes a closer look: “But yet,” his brows furrow, “Hermione was not so much wrinkled? Not as ages as this seems here.”
Paulina answers quickly with a nervous laugh, “So much the more our carver’s excellence!”
But when Perdita reaches out to touch the statue, Paulina swats her hand away quickly, saying “Patience! The statue is newly fixed, the color’s not dry!” indicating the still-wet paint. Polixenes shares a confused look with Florizel. Suspicion of “wicked powers” flows through the crowd. To prove her innocence, Paulina commands music, and then tells the statue to “descend: be stone no more.” And the statue transforms; in its place is Hermione, magically alive. Hermione is alive and is returned to her family, to her kingdom, and to her daughter.*
The Winter’s Tale is categorized as a comedy, implying it ends “happily.” In one, brief scene, Hermione comes back to life, Perdita is returned and set to marry Polixenes’ son, Florizel, which will unite two nations, and Leontes has (most of) his family back. The play ends immediately after this happy reunion. As if the past 16 years hadn’t happened. As if the cruelty Leontes’ bestowed upon his family, his country, and two female bodies hadn’t happened.
This play shows us that from birth to death, violence surrounds a woman’s body. Before her birth, Perdita is despised by her father. While pregnant, Hermione is wrongly accused and sentenced to death for adultery. Perdita grows up in patriarchal Bohemia, where she lives to serve her foster father, unaware of her princess status. Their plight is cyclical. But Hermione breaks this by her final bodily transformation. She will not be who society demands she be, but she will not be Elizabeth either. She is a phoenix, risen from the ashes of societal norms. Through Perdita and her lineage, she will continue to disrupt these standards.
*It is my belief that Hermione faked her death and was living in a sapphic society for sixteen years (I imagine with Emilia and Paulina). She may have known Perdita was still alive. But when Perdita does return to Sicilia and is of age to marry and rule, Hermione “returns” to her husband, so she can rule beside and through her daughter.
Works Referenced
Fissell, Mary. Vernacular Bodies: The Politics of Reproduction in Early Modern England. Oxford: OUP Oxford, 2006.
Lueger, Michael. “Dr. Sara B.T. Thiel on Pregnancy on the Stage in Early Modern English Drama”. Theatre History Podcast. Podcast audio, September 04, 2018.
