⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪WS\Profiles\Rachel\Application Data\Microsoft\Word\AutoRecovery save of ShakespeareEssay2.asd AmbereC:\WINDOWS\Profiles\Rachel\Aly love each other either. Instead, they simply use each other in the game of politics. King John relies on his mother?s advice, as when she urges him to marry Blanche to the Dauphin. Eleanor tells him, ?Son, list to this conjunction; make this match? (2.1.469). However, John?s grief when he hears of her death is limited to one line, when he says ?My mother dead!? (4.2.183). Indeed, his first reaction to the news is a political one. He frets, ?What, Mother dead?/ How wildly then walks my estate in France!? (4.2.127-8). Obviously, he used her rather than loved her. By the end of the play, they too are both dead.
Princess Blanche and Lewis the Dauphin?s marriage itself is purely political. King John gives Lewis Blanches? hand in marriage along with several provinces in order to win peace with France and to secure his claim to the throne of England. Blanche never pretends that she?s marrying out of love. In consenting to the marriage, Blanches says only, ?My uncle?s will in this respect is mine./ If he see aught in you that makes him like/?I can with ease translate it to my will? (2.1.511-14). (Immediately afterward, she corrects herself and replaces the word ?will? with ?love?). Indeed, she tells Lewis that she will not lie and say that everything she sees in him is worthy of love. Instead, she only admits that, ?nothing do I see in you,/ ?That I can find should merit any hate? (2.1.519-21). On the other hand, Lewis makes extravagant claims of love, protesting, ?I never loved myself/ Till now infix?d I beheld myself/ Drawn in the flattering table of her eye? (2.1.502-4). He is, of course, lying to gain the advantage of Blanche?s dowry. Throughout the play, we see nothing in their political marriage to make us think that they love each other, or t⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪
⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪osoft\Word\AutoRecovery save of ShakespeareEssay2.asd Amber=C:\WINDOWS\Profiles\Rachel\My Documents\ShakespeareEssay2.doc Amber honest characters Arthur and Blanche. Arthur genuinely loves his mother?in fact, when he is captured, his first thought is of her. He moans, ?O, this will make my mother die with grief!? (3.1.5). And yet he dies, sacrificed in a political game that he wanted no part of. There can be little doubt that Blanche enters into her marriage with Lewis for the good of her country, not out of hypocrisy, and yet the last lines we hear from her express her wretched state. Caught between England and France, she cries, ?I am with both: each army hath a hand,/ And in their rage, I having hold of both,/ They whirl asunder and dismember me? (3.1.328-30). When her new husband advises her that her fortune lies with him, Blanche replies, ?There where my fortune lives, there my life dies? (3.1.338). The Bastard, the only character who refuses to submit to ?tickling Commodity? (2.1.574), is also the only character left unpunished at the end of King John. He shows his family loyalty by killing the Duke of Austria (rather than welcoming him, as Arthur did), and by remaining with King John, even when it seemed that he?d murdered Arthur. At the end of the play, he is rewarded with the ascension of Henry III, who combines political legitimacy with the will to act.
Shakespeare criticizes political family relationships in a very different way in The Winter?s Tale: he simply omits them entirely. Hermione honestly loves her husband, calling his favor ?the crown and comfort of my life? (3.2.94). She also loves her children very much, describing them as her ?second joy? (3.2.96) and ?third comfort? (3.2.98). Leontes likewise loves his family, but his foolish jealousy alienates Perdita and Hermione, and kills Mamillius. The authenticity of his love is felt in the fifth act, when he is still acutely suffering from the loss of his family, sixteen years after Hermione?s trial and subsequent ?death.? Florizel and Perdita?s love is equally genuine. Florizel refuses to give Perdita up, even after they have fled Bohemia for Sicily, only to find that Polixenes has followed them thence. In the face of overwhelming adversity, he tells her, ?Though Fortune, visible an enemy,/ Should chase us with my father, power no jot/ Hath she to change our loves? (5.1.216-18). The other family relation⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪
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츀=Ȁἀ 茀 ℀ ჰ ionships. Everyone in The Winter?s Tale sincerely loves each other. This is as startling and as implausible as all of King John?s hypocritical relationships, especially considering that most of the families depicted in The Winter?s Tale are royal. (You would expect the majority of royal marriages to be political).
In conclusion, by examining the familial ties in The Life and Death of King John and The Winter?s Tale, we can see which of Shakespeare?s attitudes about family relationships changed and which remained constant. In his earlier play, King John, he adopted the status quo unquestioningly. None of the characters protest their male-dominated society. Constance uses the men in her life to try to fulfill her ambition, while the Lady Faulconbridge and Blanche meekly submit to them. Also, all of the characters presume that wives cannot be as faithful as husbands can. However, they take this infidelity in stride. By contrast, in The Winter?s Tale (written fourteen to sixteen years after King John), Shakespeare espouses much more feminist ideals. Hermione, Perdita, and Paulina all have power in their relationships with men. Another aspect of this feminism is the close father-child bond found in Leontes? and Polixenes? relationships with their sons.⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪
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Body Text Indent 萏ｌ萑ː搒Ǡ 葞ｌ葠ː 兲 昀 ?? ? 窠? ࠂ? ݇ 兲 ξ њ ݇ ଅ ఇ ఉ ళ ౚ ಇ ಾ ಿ ඎ ၫ ሶ ሷ ብ ኋ ኲ ዝ ጎ ጺ ፡ ። ᑏ ឈ ᭧ ᯆ⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⨪⩓ ⩟ ⬨ ⬱ ⱚ Ɽ ⴕ ⴞ ⺝ ⺥ ⾃ ⾈ ⾉ ⾑ ネ ブ ㏶ 䌄ᙊ *၊䌀ᙊ倀he Winter?s Tale?he omits them entirely. All of the characters, including Leontes, genuinely love each other.
By exploring Shakespeare?s attitudes, we come to know him as a revolutionary thinker, not just a playwright and poet. It becomes clear that Shakespeare himself stood a bit outside of society, much like the figure of the Bastard in King John. He critiques both the patriarchalism and political, hypocritical relationships so rampant in Elizabethan England. From the popularity of his plays, we can surmise that Shakespeare gathered quite a following in this revolutionary thinking. The only question remaining is, how much of an impact on Elizabethan society did this innovation have? Although it is impossible to conclusively measure Shakespeare?s impact on early modern thinking, I firmly believe that he permanently altered it.