earticle

영어

This study examines the women’s sisterhood which results in giving hope and rejuvenating the society in the Winter’s Tale. Male characters such as Leontes and Polixenes caught in the linear thinking of patriarchy, reconcile and were reborn through the devoted motherhood and the maternal sisterhood of women such as Hermione, Perdita and Paulina. Caught by linear and patriarchal thinking, Leontes recognizes the creation and wisdom of women such as Hermione and Paulina, who represent the cyclical image of nature, as treason and denial challenging him. With his baseless jealousy for adultery, Leontes orders Hermione to be imprisoned for adultery and treason and to abandon her daughter, Perdita, to a distant place as an illegitimate child. Leontes, who lost his heir, spent 16 years in regret and grief. Bringing a new life force to Sicilia, the barren land, is the motherly sisterhood of Hermione and Paulina and the vitality of Perdita described as “Maiden of Spring.” The archetypes of the motherly sisterhood can find in the Demeter and Persephone myths of Greek mythology. Shakespeare shows through The Winter’s Tale that the solid bond and the sisterhood of women can function as a positive force which changes the people and the society around them beyond family harmony.