Jennifer is a student on the Shakespeare Studies MA, a unique course from Shakespeare’s Globe and King’s College University of London.
In this blog - ‘Woman of the Week’, Jennifer pitches two female characters from The Winter’s Tale against each other as she turns them into ‘Top trumps cards’. If these cards turned up in your hand which would win you the game ?
Winter has well and truly arrived, with our unseasonably warm autumn giving into rain, frost and incessant Christmas songs. So let’s withdraw to the fireside and think of faraway lands where bears peruse courtiers and statues come to life…
For our first woman of the week we turn to The Winter’s Tale and the shortlist is made up of the loyal and charming Hermione and the brave Paulina, two women who not only drive the action of the play but also give it its heart. Absent from the pastoral scenes that gives this play its lighter moments, Hermione and Paulina begin the play in false accusation and anger but close the play with lost loves reuniting and new loves beginning.
And the winner is….Paulina!
From her early scenes battling the maddened King to the control she has in revealing Hermione to her long last family, Paulina is the puppet master of the play and the only one brave and determined enough to confront Leontes. Though Hermione’s turn as a living statue is hard to beat, Paulina’s sheer fortitude, loyalty and flair for the dramatic makes her the woman of the play and this week’s woman of the week!
By Jennifer Holland