Instant Access To 100,000+ Essays!

Women in The Winter’s Tale The winter’s tale was one of Shakespeare’s last plays. As a typical tragicomic, the whole play is shaped into a two-part structure. The first part is the story about Leonte’s jealousy which brings the destruction to his royal family. It is completely tragic and sad. With a narration from the Time, the latter part, which tells the things 16 years later, turns from dim scenes to be bright and comic. The love between Florizel and Perdita, the reunification of Leontes with his lost daughter and wife bring to the play a perfect ending. Man’s distrust and suspicion of his wife is really a common topic. While obviously, the meaning the play tries to convey should much more than that. Shakespeare put the topic onto a king who in some senses is the symbol of power, and narrowly speaking, of masculine power. As Patricia Gourlay has mentioned in her essay about The Winter’s tale, the position of men and women in Shakespeare’s society is as follows: That society is, of course, masculine, with male and female roles, in general, conventionally defined. Because men rule, the “masculine” values are power, law, and reason; because men is hardheaded, disciplined, practical, as well