SOURCE: Alfar, Cristina León. “The Neurotic Subject of Tragedy: Fantasies of Female Evil in The Winter's Tale.” In Fantasies of Female Evil: The Dynamics of Gender and Power in Shakespearean Tragedy, pp. 163-85. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2003.

In the following essay, Alfar discusses Leontes as the embodiment of the tyranny of masculinist absolute rule and the commoditization of women. By challenging Leontes's patrilineal sovereignty, the critics avers, Hermione and Paulina represent “fantasies of female evil” who threaten the very underpinnings of the patriarchal order through their perceived adultery and rebellion. Alfar concludes that Shakespeare rejected “monarchical and conjugal tyranny” through the generic transformation of The Winter's Tale from a potentially violent and destructive tragedy to a romance that points to an optimistic future of reconciliation.

At the end of The Winter's Tale, Hermione, believed by her husband to have died sixteen years before, miraculously transforms from...