"I loved him as in honour he required,
With such a kind of love as might become
A lady like me, with a love even such,
So and no other, as yourself commanded"
I know that Professor Burton might see this as another one of Hermione's tricks, but I see it as a cry for help and for justice. I feel a great amount of sympathy towards Hermione. Yes, maybe some might say she flirted with Polixenes, but he threw her in prison on a whim, tried to poison his best friend, and ordered his baby daughter killed. You also cannot discount the oracle that proclaimed Hermione pure and Leontes a vicious tyrant.
I think that Hermione's ability to use rhetoric in her favor proves that she has learned to acclimate in a world where, though she is queen, she hold very little real power. She knows how to manage herself in court, and she accomplishes what her husband asks. When she is on trial she explains that she only did what her husband asked. I am not sure how Shakespeare wanted Hermione to be perceived, but I see her as a character that is played by the system, not as a woman with a "side ho" as it was phrased so delicately in last class.
I like the point about you made about her not having any real power in court and the need to "manage herself" in that court. It really is true, and so ironic - as you point out - that she is being punished for doing just that.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree! It was kind of scary to notice that even though she made more logical arguments during the trial (and even had divine approval to back her up), she was convicted of adultery because she didn't have the power to stop the king from doing so.
ReplyDeleteI just feel like everything she expresses is more or less completely fine. When I create her voice in my head I don't hear a flirtatious woman trying to get out of a situation, I just hear a woman pleading for someone to hear what she is really saying. I feel like I sympathize more with her than with Leontes, who seems completely irrational for obvious reasons.
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