In Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, Hermione's “death” catalyzes the narrative development. Quantitatively, she has a small role beyond the first three acts, but the show pivots and ultimately comes together around her. Initially it is her perceived flirtation with Polixenes that initiates Leontes' jealous rage and sets in motion the play's main chain of events. Hermione's rhetorical wordplay and her use of the word “Prisoner” (1.2.52) have a familiar and perhaps even slightly flirtatious quality. The feeling of Hermione wooing Polixenes to stay is echoed by Leontes and juxtaposed with Leontes's “three tormented months” (1.2.103) attempts to woo Hermione. We can almost sense the bitterness creeping into Leontes' words, emphasized by the explosive sound and the implicit meaning of "crab". Furthermore, its three-month time scale is at odds with the relative speed with which Hermione convinces Polixenes to stay. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get Original Essay Later, as she is about to be imprisoned, her liveliness has diminished, but Shakespeare showcases her resolve, wit, and strength of character. He repeatedly refuses to condemn Leontes as a villain, instead stating with absolute faithfulness: "Thou, my lord, / Make but one mistake..." (2.1.80-81), and later, "Thou hast " (2.1.99 ). Leontes' actions cause an uproar in the court and protest among the assistants. The sense of injustice is aggravated by Hermione's pregnancy, and it is by Leontes' disposition of the child that the main substance of the subsequent acts emerges in Shakespeare's deviation from Pandosto's tragic model. The passion with which Hermione speaks during the trial scene is also particularly heartbreaking. Part of this effect is due to the delicacy of the imagery: "My life is on the level of your dreams, / Which I will lay..." (3.2.81-82); that line evokes WB Yeats: “I have spread my dreams beneath your feet / Walk softly for you walk on my dreams.” Hermione's dignity is on full display as she details the wrongs committed against her: the loss of Leontes' "favour", the denial of the "first fruits of [her] body" Mamillius, and the title of "Strombo" granted by Leontes (3.2 .94-102). These wrongs place her once again at the absolute center of the narrative and its subsequent progression. It is only the death of Mamillius and the “death” of Hermione that causes Leontes remorse and changes the power dynamic within their relationship. His earlier dispatch of Antigonus with what he believes to be a bastard son was also, essentially, an attempted infanticide by proxy. Importantly, it is this child who will grow up to unite both kingdoms through the political alliance of marriage; together with Hermione's resuscitation, it leads to the critical designation of the work as a tragicomedy, or more frequently as a romance. Perdita's role is relatively marginal (and deemed to be of marginal status until the epilogue), although she is, in reality, the crucial link of reconciliation that unites the pastoral and the urban. Furthermore, the character responsible for Hermione's resurrection, and the person who orchestrates her absence, occupies another marginal female role: that of Paulina, who is initially Hermione's loudest defendant. The idea of ​​a revelatory female intervention in the narrative is not at all unusual; we see him in a slightly modified form at the conclusion of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Morgan Le Fay is invoked as the cause of action within the poem: “He sent me on that errand in thy noble hall” (O'Donoghue 56). This.