psycho Flashcards
opening dialogue between Camillo and Archidamus discussing Leontes and Polixenes friendship “They were trained together in their childhoods; and there rooted between them then such an affection which cannot but branch now. Since their more mature dignities and royal necessities made separation of their society’
‘trained’= implications of duty + destiny and formality. the verbs ‘rooted’ and ‘branch’ coupled with adjective ‘mature’ connote the natural course of growth from childhood to adulthood.
juxtaposition between ‘childhood affections’ and ‘more mature dignities’ = mirroring Leonte’s internal conflict
- setting the scene for Leontes bitter rejection of his duty in favour of indulging pleasure principles
Opening dialogue between Cam + Arch discussing Mamillius as heir to throne’ It is a gallant child, one that…makes old hearts fresh.
Emphasis on patriarchal succession + faith of subjects placed on Mamil (highlight tragedy of death for contemporary audience)
Mam rep Lentes ‘masculine self (Reid) and foreshadows the inevitable death because L must identify with ‘fem self’ to achieve redemption.
- jux b/w ‘old’ and ‘fresh’= emphasis on Mam youth and regenerative properties / youth is characterised as ‘unspeakable comfort’ = desirable.
Pol to Leontes and Hermione as he begins his reasoning for needing to leave Sic + return to Bohemia ‘Nine changes of the watery star hath been…The shepherd’s note since we have left our throne’
‘nine changes’= referencing period of human gestation + ‘watery star’= moon (fem symbol) and POD serves to draw attention too Hermione’s pregnant body.
Pol uses this language to begin his reasoning for needing to leave Sicilia = resentment from Leontes to Hermione because he sees her as severing homosocial bonds.
- L desires to return to pre oedipal existence free from ‘temptations’ of women.
Pol to H reminiscing of idyllic childhood with Leontes “we were as twinned lambs that did frisk I’ the sun’
phonetic qualities eg clipped assonance and soft consonance = nostalgic tone pastoral imagery + biblical allusion to prelapsarian EDEN
Polixenes and L idealise their sexless youth and wish to be ‘boy eternal’
Pol to H on how/ why the halcyon days ended
‘O my most sacred lady!
Temptations have since then been born to’s’
‘temptations’= biblical allusion to Eve as perpetrator for fall of man
‘born to’s’ = passive voice (men abjuring responsibility) verb choice ‘born’ shows maternal language pervades speech despite disdain for role of women in society. Pol + L idealise their youth and associate loss of this with sexual maturity.
L recalling courtship w H before she agreed to marry him:
‘three crabbed months’ that ‘soured themselves to death’
Juxtapose nostalgia of Polixenes childhood recollections, ‘crabbed’ + ‘soured’ + ‘death’= resentful tone and POD associated with overmastering and ripening + becoming reunited, ‘‘temptations’ caused him to ‘sin’.
Positions H as a reluctant bride + further evidence L sees her as a mother figure.
L seeking comfort in young son Mam:
‘The say we are almost as like as eggs’
- ‘eggs’ connote embryo i.e the earliest point in human development which emphasises L drastic infantile regression.
L tries to identify with Mamillius because he feels betrayed by previous ‘twin’ Polixenes.
decribed by Adleman as ‘a deeply irrational attempt to replace the lost township by reinstating the fantasy of male parthenogenesis in Mamillius.’ parthenogenesis=spontaneous development of an embryo from an unfertilized (eg big g mother m)
Observing Mam →reflecting on own youth:
Looking on the lines of my boy’s face, methoughtsI did recoil twenty-three years, and saw myself unbreeched…my dagger muzzled…’’
‘recoil’ connotes disgust/ fear/ repulsion = L has aversion to current state of adulthood + sexual maturity + wishes to return to earlier stage of psychoanalytic development.
‘unbreeched’= in Childs clothing ie isn’t sexually mature yet ‘dagger’= phallic imagery +martial symbol ‘muzzled’ connotes the restrain and suppression emphasising Leontes’ state of infantile regression and repulsion towards sexual maturity.
L salaciously imagining H’s supposed infidelity w Pol
‘And many a man there is…That little thinks she [his wife] has been sluiced in’s absence…No barricadofor a belly;
know’t;
It will let in and out the enemy
With bag and baggage:
many thousand on’sHave the disease, and feel’tnot.’
‘sluiced’ + ‘bag and baggage’ = graphic imagery associated with male sexual experience / Leontes indulging in fantasy of repressed desires.
- L demolishing sex as lewd and explicit + undesirable explains to distance himself from sexual maturity (infantile regression)
- objectifying Hermione as ‘a belly’ L tries to claim her body as male space which he must defend (‘barricado’) from the ‘enemy’ (politeness or father figure)
- ‘disease’ = repressed desires or ADULTHOOD.
Mam to H
‘a sad tales best for winter’
- 1 of only 2 female domestic spaces in the play (other = Paulina’s gallery)
‘winters tale’ = fairy tale traditionally gendered female = Mam comfortable in this space. - conniptions of Mamillius name. \
L forcibly removes Mam from maternal space at a crucial age of development -> arrested arrested development and ultimately death. - motif of seasons + significance of title / winter= dormant represent L’s wishes for no change but without change consequently no growth
Mam to H:
‘I have drunk, and seen the spider.’
Metaphor for L’s narrow + warped view of world →focused only on his needs + desires while neglecting those of his family + subjects
•Link to oral contamination →spider = women? “fem self”?
Seizing Mam from H:
‘Give me the boy. I am glad you did not nurse him. Though he does bear some signs of me, yet you have too much blood in him.’
Mam forcibly removed from nurturing fem space / name connotes bond b/w mother + child →adumbrates Mam’s untimely death b/c X survive w/o maternal nurturance
‘not nurse him’ –placing H as source of corruption (broader pattern of d)
‘too much blood in him’ –L seeks to rid his world of “corrupting” fem influ→doomed to fail b/c integrole women play
Paul convincing jailer to let her take Perd to L:
‘This child was prisoner to the womb and is by law and process of great nature thence freed and enfranchised…’
challenges L’s latent womb fantasy / infant reg b/c Paul highlights natural process of birth + freedom/independence that comes w this
‘office becomes a woman best’ =Paul recognises L rejecting “fem self” t/f only strong, determined fem influence can “cure” him
Leontes about Mam’s decline in health:
‘Conceiving the dishonourof his mother,He straight declined, droop’d, took it deeply’
‘dishonour’, ‘declined’, ‘droop’d’, ‘deeply’ alliteration emphasizes Mam dramatic decline since being forcibly removed from mother
leads to arrested development due to decreased maternal care and nurturance
•Leontes trying to negate maternal role by blaming H for Mam’s decline
Paul to L as she tries make him see sense:
‘I do come with words as medicinal as true’
‘medicinal’ Paul’s ‘words’ portrayed as “antidote” to L’s fixation on pre-Oedipal/repulsion towards women + sex
Feminine influence is the only way to “cure” L’s ‘disease’
Eloquence(fluent or persuasive writing) of fem characters vs L’s erratic speech throughout play
