Disguise in A Winter’s Tale

The concept of disguise was really prominent in Act 4 Scene 4: everyone was in some sort of disguise: whether dressing up or just pretending to be someone entirely. This scene really reminded me of the “power of fashion” when we read the Taming of the Shrew, but it comes off even stronger here. The disguises seem to give each character a chance to reveal a side of themselves that would not otherwise be seen. We get to see perdita dressed up as a goddess instead of a farm girl, and the king leaves his court disguised a common man. In a sense, it seems that their roles (Perdita and Polixenes) are reversed and we see more of that “reversion’ later on when they discuss their opinions of mixing purebreed flowers with hardier wildflowers, but then again, can you apply reasoning of flower to humans? Polixenes stance on wildflowers made me think that he would have let Florenzo go through with the wedding were he more upfront about it. It seemed like he only got angry when Florenzo refused to invite him to the important ceremony. Disguise comes up again and again in all of shakespeare plays and every time it does, it shows us something important about each character in the scene the deception is taking place.

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One Response to Disguise in A Winter’s Tale

  1. I found it also interesting that disguises come up often in Shakespeare’s plays. Whether the play is a romantic comedy, a tragedy or historical someone is almost always concealing their true identity. As this was said in class before during our discussions of Taming Of The Shrew, Shakespeare probably had in mind the disguises people in general put on for their daily lives. Why can’t a farm girl be a Goddess and a Prince be a commoner? Society prohibits these ideas from our minds and who’s to say otherwise…other than the playwright?

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