Taking a Closer Look at Leontes

Leontes’s sudden madness is quite similar to Lear’s when he confronted Cordelia’s honest, “nothing” response (to “Love, and be silent”). However, what Leontes clearly lacks is Lear’s love. Lear reveals his love at numerous times throughout the play. It is also revealed in the first half of the play that Cordelia was Lear’s favorite and that he previously believed that her love understood him best (“I loved her most, and thought to set my rest/ On her kind nursery”). However, Leontes seems to lack honest words of endearment and affection in the first half of the play except for when he says, “Hermione, my dearest, thou never spoke’st/ To better purpose,” (ll. 88-89).  The lines that follow reveal that the only other time she spoke of “better purpose” was when she first vowed to him (accepted his marriage proposal after making him wait for three months). Their brief story of their eternal love, however, sounds more like a flame that was long ago put out. But what exactly sets off Leontes’s jealousy aside from the overly general answer, paranoia. Shakespeare manipulates his readers/audience by withdrawing the cause of the king’s jealousy, and through his later actions, tells us to take a closer look for what it is and where it happens. It seems rather odd that a person would hold his wife’s eternal love at the same level of importance as getting his friend to stay a tad longer. But nevertheless, Leontes puts the same value on both of these verbal acts. Maybe the thing that sets off the King’s madness is when he reflects upon these two achievements (how a great thing can not only be completed for a “royal husband” but also for  “a friend”). Comparing the two is what perhaps leads to his destructive fantasies. Similar to Lear, Leontes refuses to take his most loved person’s words as genuine and true; and instead, falls because of doubt and skepticism. However, notice how the play isn’t absorbed by Leontes’s attempt to persuade others or the audience that his wife is a cheater. That is, his psychological battle over whether his wife cheated or not isn’t played out on stage; quickly and simply, he determines that she has committed an unfaithful act. In one split second, his paranoia and made up fantasies triumphed over completely. And so, from the very start the history of Leontes is like a closed book. In addition, his quickness to give into his jealous frenzy may suggest that his doubts might have secretly been there for some time (similar to the possibility that Lear’s madness had been present even before the play started).

Moreover, it’s as though his decisions cannot be questioned. He ultimately transforms the possibility that Hermione slept with Polixenes into the only thing that could have happened. Paulina even describes how there are no definitive answers, only strong feelings and emotions to base his argument by stating, "as the case now stands, it is a curse/ He cannot be compell'd to't--once remove/The root of his opinion, which is rotten/ As ever oak or stone was sound.” Despite Paulina’s rational, it is conveyed to the reader that the only “true” answer is his own, and that Leontes is unable to distinguish between what is possible from what is likely. Yet the question still remains, what leads to this jealous drama becoming so destructive? If we reflect on all the plays we’ve read, perhaps the answer lies with one’s position of power.

Lear, Prospero, and Leontes are all characters of power. As we all know, Lear was a king who desperately wanted to hear what he already scripted out in his head. In addition, there was little to no one that objected his decision to banish his beloved daughter. Prospero, also serving as a person of authority, obtained magical powers and served as a ruler to the island. Similar to that of Lear, Leontes is a king who is able to make whatever decisions he wants because he, in the simplest sense, is able to get away with it. All three men have and share this unrestrictive power and authority, and because of their status, there isn’t anything to hold them in check. Leontes especially is like an apex figure, on-top of our social hierarchy (his word is unquestioned and supposed to be taken as truth). Moreover, what all these characters have in common is their insecurity (Lear with needing to be flattered and for his daughters to affirm their love for him, Prospero with his competitive need to flaunt his humanity and wisdom, and Leontes’s inability to trust his friend and wife). As a result, the author leads the reader to believe that these characters are vulnerable when it comes to love. Leontes  in particular serves as an accuser and as a destroyer of love in the first half of the play.

It’s important to note how Shakespeare highlights Leontes’s role as love destroyer by the way he multiplies the love bonds throughout the play. It is made clear that Hermione loves her husband and even forgives him. Leontes, however, isn’t just a husband, he’s also the father to her son, her king, and the father to her new born child. These various bonds tie her to him and ultimately illuminate her inner dilemma. These bonds, in addition to Hermione’s helplessness, is what intensifies Leontes’s cruelty. It’s equally important to compare how Hermione’s honest actions are misinterpreted by her husband. Throughout the play we return to this idea that something really can come from nothing, that is, nothing that’s seemingly harmless. When he is told that there is “nothing” between Hermione and Polixenes, Leontes responds by saying, “Is whispering nothing?... Is this nothing? / Why, then the world and all that's in't is nothing, / The covering sky's nothing, Bohemia nothing, / My wife is nothing, nor nothing have these nothings, / If this be nothing” (ll. 284-296). Obviously, Leontes interprets this “nothing” as something, and what results is an entire sequence of dramatic events (similar to that of King Lear). This just goes back to my initial argument that something can come of nothing (differing from Lear’s logic that “nothing will come of nothing”). Throughout the entire play we have this echoing of the word “nothing” and the ramifications from uttering the mere word. What this may suggest (in both King Lear and The Winter’s Tale) is that the more we love, the more we are vulnerable or susceptible to corrupting that love. Perhaps we need to take Shakespeare’s advice in King Lear to simply “Love, and be silent.”