Stupidity

Because of the King stupidity he suffers terribly. Do you think he got what he deserves. Justify your answer.

King Leontes works himself into a great hatred with jealousy over false accusations. William Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale portrays jealousy within different degrees. Mainly in the character King Leontes who perceives the notion that he being is cuckolded. Due to this he has an unexpected turn of mishaps which bring the king nothing but misery. It can be stated that he deserves such misfortunes after all he does, though others will see him as an innocent victim to the consequences. However this essay will focus on the fact of the King deserved his misfortunes.

In Act 1-3 we see the story unfolding as King Leontes watches his wife and his friend. He then proceeds to accuse the Queen of adultery because he thinks Polixenes and her are too close to be friends. As a result his misery begins. His jealousy carries his wife and son to their graves with grieve. He is very paranoid and in some cases superstitious. He sends for word to the oracles for support in his accusation and upon hearing otherwise he takes the mentality of a true man in Shakespearean time. This type of man sees the woman as wrong and men are always right.

Furthermore his stupidity increases when his daughter is brought to him after he throws his wife in jail. He plans to burn the child to save his conscience as he posit in Act 3 scenec three

“Shall I live on, to see this bastard kneel and call me father?

Better burn it now, than curse it then.”

   With this he is stating it is better to kill his own child than have her call him father and he curses her. However the resemblance according to Paulina is a strong resemblance of King Leontes only the hair is like the Queen’s. he still assumes the mind of unreason and thus forces his child to be banished to left alone in the cold without a family. Remorse only hits him; he notices he has no heir to Sicilia’s throne. Upon this news of death his wife dies due to the overbearance of knowing without her children she is nothing.

The King indeed deserved such suffering to bring forth his commonsense to see the nature of his wife was forever in his favour and love. However he had to learn life was not all about what happened to others but how much you understood your family and not let jealousy cause you pain and damage beyond repair in your life.