Winter Tale freud Flashcards
stephen Reid
Mamillius= Leontes’ “masculine self” / Perdita = “feminine self”
MurraySchwartz
The myth of “twin’dlambs” is a retrospective idealisation of boyhood in the interest of clinging to a paradisal version of pre-Oedipal existence when confronted by the temptation towards sexual contact.’•‘As Mamillius’ name implies, Leontes’ masculine image of himself is maternally fixated.’
Janet Adelman
‘Shakespeare achieves the recuperation of the maternal body…by immersion in the fertile space of a decidedly female pastoral…filled with the vibrant energies of sexuality and seasonal change, it stands as a rebuke to Polixenes’sstatic and nostalgic male pastoral…The pastoral initiates this recuperation…moving from tragedy to romance by demonstrating that this place of “otherness” can be a source of richness…’
•‘…the primary psychic significance of the play’s radical break with Leontes’s consciousness…the only possible antidote to his disease…Leontes’s psyche is presented as the locus of the disease…’
•‘…if Leontes’s attempt to control the world by banishing the female had unmade the world for him, Hermione’s coming to life figures the return of the world to him and his capacity to tolerate and participate in its aliveness, with all its attendant risks.’•‘…in Paulina’s refuge, which Leontes’s long penitential submission entitles him to enter, maternal presence can be restored. Andthe restoration turns on bringing him face to face with exactly what he has done, so that he can undo it step by step, vesting Hermione with life as he has earlier deprived her of it. For the statue grants him what he thought he wanted: the unreliable female body reduced to an icon he could possess forever, static and unchanging.’
Opening dialogue btw Cam + Arch discussing L + Pol’s friendship:
They were trained together in their childhoods; and there rooted between them then such an affection which cannot choose but branch now. Since their more mature dignities and royal necessities made separation of their society… (1.1.19-21 p.84)
- ‘trained’ implications of duty + destiny + formality
- verbs ‘rooted’ + ‘branch’ coupled w adj ‘mature’ connote natural course of growth from childhood →adulthood•Juxbtw ‘childhood affections’ + ‘more mature dignities’ mirroring L’s internal conflict
- Setting scene for L’s bitter rejection of duty in favour indulging pleasure principles
Opening dialogue btw Cam + Arch discussing Mam as heir to throne:It is a gallant child, one that…makes old hearts fresh. (1.1.32-33 p.85)
•Emphasis on patriarchal succession + faith of subjects placed on Mam (highlight tragedy of death for contempaud)•Mam = L’s ‘mascself’ (Reid) foreshadows inevitable untimely death b/c L must identify w ‘fem self’ to achieve redemption•Juxbtw ‘old’ + ‘fresh’ emphasis on Mam’s youth + regenerative properties / youth characterised as ‘unspeakable comfort’ + desirable
Pol to L (+H) as he begins his reasoning for needing to leave Sic + return to Bo:Nine changes of the watery star hath beenThe shepherd’s note since we have left our throne… (1.2.1-2 p.85)
•‘nine changes’ = ref to period of human gestation / ‘watery star’ = moon (fem symbol) →pattern of dictserves to draw audience’s attento H’s pregnant body•Pol uses this lang to begin his reasoning for needing to leave Sic →resentment from L to H b/c sees her as severing homosocbonds •L desires to return to pre-Oedipal existence free from ‘temptations’ of womenOR:•L feels intimidated by H’s maternal power / sees H as mother figure →Oedipal anxieties
Pol to H reminiscing a/b idyllic childhood w/ L:We were as twinn’dlambs that did frisk i’ the sun(1.2.66 p.89)
•Phonetic qualities e.g.clipped assonance + soft consonance →nostalgic tone•Pastoral imagery + biblical allusion to prelapsarian Eden •Pol + L idealisetheir sexless youth + wish to be ‘boy eternal’
Pol to H on how/why halcyon days ended:O my most sacred lady!Temptations have since then been born to’s(1.2.75-79 p.90)
•‘temptations’ bib allusion to Eve as perpetrator for fall of Man•‘born to’s’ = passive voice (men abjuring responsibility) / verb choice ‘born’ shows maternal lang pervades speech despite disdain for role of women in society•Pol + L idealisetheir youth + associate loss of this w sexual maturity
L recalling courtship w H before she agreed to marry him:‘three crabbed months’ that ‘soured themselves to death’(1.2.108-101 p.91)
•Juxnostalgia of Pol’s childhood recollections•‘crabbed’ + ‘soured’ + ‘death’ = resentful tone / pattern of dictassocw over-maturing/ripening + becoming ruined•L has disdain for duty as king + husb/ desires return pre-sexual boyhood before ‘temptations’ caused him to ‘sin’•Positions H as reluctant bride + further evidence L sees her as mother figure
L seeking comfort in young son Mam:The say we are almost as like as eggs(1.2.128-129 p.93)
•‘eggs’ connote embryo i.e.earliest point in human dev emphasizes L’s drastic infantile reg•L tries to identify w Mam b/c feels betrayed by previous ‘twin’ Pol•Described by Adelman as ‘…adeeply irrational attempt to replace the lost twinship by reinstating the fantasy of male parthenogenesis in Mamillius.’
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…’(1.2.152-157 p.95)
•‘recoil’ connotes disgust/fear/repulsion →L has aversion to current state of adult + sexual maturity + wishes to return to earlier stage of psychosexual dev•‘unbreeched’ = in child’s clothing i.e.X yet sexually mature / ‘dagger’ = phallic imagery + martial symb/ ‘muzzled’ connotes restrain + suppression emphasisingL’s state of infantile reg + 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 enemyWith bag and baggage: many thousand on’sHave the disease, and feel’tnot. (1.2.185-205 p.97-98)
•‘sluiced’ + ‘bag and baggage →graphic imagery assocw male sexual exp / L indulging in fantasy of repressed desires? OR•L demonisingsex as lewd, explicit + undesirable exp to distance himself from sexual maturity (infantile reg)•Objectifying H as ‘a belly’ L tries to claim her body as male space which he must defend (‘barricado’) from the ‘enemy’ (Pol/father figure)•‘disease’ = adulthood? Repressed desires? Sexual desires?
Mam to H:A sad tale’s best for winter(2.1.25-26 p.113)
•1 of only 2 female, domestic spaces in the play (other is Paul’s gallery in A5)•‘winter’s tale’ i.e.fairy tale traditionally gendered female →Mam comfortable in this space•Connotations of Mam’s name•L forcibly removes Mam from maternal space at crucial stage in dev →arrested dev + untimely death •Motif of seasons + significance of title / winter = dormant rep L’s wishes for X change but w/o change X growth
Mam to H:I have drunk, andseen the spider.’(2.1.45 p.114)
•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. (2.1.56-58 p.115)
•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 Perdto L:This child was prisoner to the womb and is by law and process of great nature thence freed and enfranchised…(2.2.58-59 p.126)
•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 recognizes L rejecting “fem self” t/f only strong, determined fem influcan “cure” him
L a/b Mam’s decline in health:Conceiving the dishonourof his mother,He straight declined, droop’d, took it deeply(2.3.13-14 p.128)
•‘dishonour’, ‘declined’, ‘droop’d’, ‘deeply’ allitemphasizes Mam dramatic decline since being forcibly removed from mother →arrested dev due to ↓maternal care + nurturance•L 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(2.3.13-14 p.128)
•‘medicinal’ Paul’s ‘words’ portrayed as “antidote” to L’s fixation on pre-Oedipal/repulsion towards women + sex•Fem influonly way to “cure” L’s ‘disease’•Eloquence of fem characters vs L’s erratic speech throughout play
L to Paul as she challenges him:A callatOf boundless tongue, who late hath beat her husbandAnd now baits me! (2.3.90-92 p.133-134)
•Allitof ‘b’ →contemptuous tone•‘callet’, ‘boundless tongue’, ‘beat’, ‘bait’ position Paul as stereotypical shrewish woman →L relying on these tropes to try + rid himself of fem infl+ reinforce his sense of mascpower•L projecting castration anxieties onto Paul + Antig’sr’ship
Servant to L:The prince, your son, with mere conceit and fear of the Queen’s speed, is gone.Paul:This news is mortal to the Queen.(3.2.141-144 p.149-50)
•‘innocent milk’ + ‘innocent mouth’ maternal imagery highlights H’s role as mother + nurturer / rep of ‘innocent’ emphasizes H’s position is inline w that of oracle’s•Mam’s death directly attribto H’s mistreatment / ‘mortal’i.e.deadly →shows intrinsic + symbiotic bond btw mother + child + catastrophic consequences of severing bond before child is fully dev
Antigrecounting his dream a/b H to baby Perdas he prepares to abandon her on seacoast of Bo:…thy mother appear to me last night…in pure white robes like very sanctity…(3.3.16-22 p.156)
•‘pure white robes’, ‘sanctity’ connote H’s obvious innocence + Antig’sunconscious acknowof this →chooses to ignore this + brutally punished forignoring innate desires/feelings
Clown recounting the sinking of the Sic ship which was:…swallowed with yeast and froth…(3.3.85 p.160)
•New setting of Bo / untamed coast juxw confines of interior spaces of Sic (e.g.court) / Adelman: ‘fertile space of a decidedly female pastoral’ to allow for L’s healing + reconciliation •Purgative storm providesbreak from L’s psyche to allow for growth, healing + reconcil
Shepherd’s opening lines after storm:I would there were no age between ten and three-and-twenty…(3.3.58 p.158)
•Stark contrast to L’s fixation on youth →Sheprecognizes folly of youth + embraces knowledge that comes w aging process (provides foil to L)
Autolycus sings a raunchy song:When daffodils begin to peer,With heigh, the doxy over the dale…(4.3.1-2 p.167)
•‘daffodil’, ‘doxy’ + ‘dale’ allitassocsex (doxy = prostitute) w nature suggesting sex is natural + should not be seen as ‘sinful’ as was suggested in first part of play•Foil to L →contrast w salacious lang earlier in play / Auto’s song appears to mock L’s sterile attittowards sex as / rather he sees sex as playful + fun•h/w challenge to L X strong as Auto is a rogue + petty thief / contempaudX take him seriously compared w king
