earticle

영어

This study examines the fundamental cause of Leontes’ incomprehensible behavior towards Hermione in The Winter’s Tale based on Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish and also Hermione’s resistance to Leontes’ power. Leontes’ groundless doubt and frightful behavior do not stem from his own personal flaws but from men’s fear of women, which is deeply embedded in their subconsciousness. He feared Hermione’s active erotic energy and superior power of words, which created baseless suspicion of adultery. In order to remove or at least relieve that fear, Leontes tried to suppress Hermione by watching her every move, distortedly interpreting and judging her actions, and imprisoning her on the basis of a discipline and punish strategy for the subordinate. As a consequence of his viciousness, Hermione lost everything and had to live in death. But even after all was revealed, she had maintained her life-in-death status for 16 years. In addition, Hermione and even the other women did not talk to Leontes in the last part of the play. They were just silent. It means their own resistance to a violent male desire towards women rather than the realization of a male fantasy to suppress the female body. As a result, Leontes’ attempt at making her ‘docile’ failed, and the containment of the female body was ultimately meaningless.