The Ever-Changing Nature of Human Beings & the Necessity for Women to Curtail their Emotions: A Lesson from Shakespeare’s Play “A Winter’s Tale”
Let's talk about our ‘modern’ men. Modern men like liberal women. It's a liberal woman, a man is attracted to (most of the time). Her eccentricity, her fearlessness to unashamedly express and act on her emotions, is what impresses him. Not only this, he will even encourage his woman to abandon her reserve and all social constraints that hold her back. However, the same man will, after having possessed her, suddenly take a 180° turn by wanting to curtail her liberality. The very things he pushed her to do start becoming problematic to him.
In each one of his plays, Shakespeare seems to be commenting on human nature. His characters show how humans are never linear; we can never be sure of any single character, as they are prone to change. One such example is that of King Leontes in The Winter’s Tale. In the very beginning of the play we see him asking his wife to request his friend King Polixenes to stay a little longer at their palace: "Tongue-tied, our queen? Speak you". But when she manages to do just that, he becomes paranoid with baseless suspicion that is uncalled for. The same man who wanted his wife to use her mellow language to persuade Polixenes to stay, now calls her a loose woman. Likewise, the modern man of today is not to be trusted when he says he is liberal and wants his woman to be liberal too. The very behaviour he may encourage in a woman today is the very behaviour he would condemn in her tomorrow.
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But in all this, where does a woman stand? The universality of Hermoine's character in The Winter's Tale is usually not much reflected upon. However, even in this advanced age, she is a perfect example of a woman's predicament in any sort of relationship. In all her naivety, she makes the mistake of trespassing boundaries which Leontes has suddenly sketched for her in his mind. Boundaries that never existed before now exist because now they serve the web of suspicion that Leontes is crafting in his paranoid-stricken mind. In his mind, he has already drawn up his conclusion that she is a fallen woman.
Moreover, in Hermoine’s character, women can find a lesson. In any socially unrecognizable and unacknowledged relationship, a woman is the one who needs to be careful the most. She has to be cautious not to cross the socially constructed boundaries of gender. If a woman acts too freely on the liberty of her emotions and goodness, which a man encourages in her, then her goodness can backfire. She should never throw caution to the wind even if the man insists that she be unreserved. She cannot afford to be off her guard, because nature has destined a woman to always remain conscious of her limitations and boundaries.
And I think this is one of the most serious plights of being a woman. Nature has created her to be more emotional of the two sexes. If she uses less of her emotions and more of her brain, then she is not feminine enough and is said to have gone against her nature. So, in keeping with her femininity, she is expected to exercise emotions, but where the boundaries of those emotions lie, she knows not. There's always a danger that her emotions will overflow and spill all over the place; that it will be too late to turn the tap shut. The idea of letting go and baring yourself completely is very appealing and liberating, but it is the easy way out. The hardest way is to curtail your emotions and liberty in order not to transgress a boundary from which returning is not possible. Hence, the greatest challenge for a woman is to strike a perfect balance between reason and emotion. And no matter how much a man encourages her to be emotionally unreserved, she should never give in to the misleading notion of liberty that he bestows on her.
