Point of View

The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare is presented in first person from the limited perspective of the various characters, though there is an omniscient quality as well. This comes from the fact that various characters take the stage, each revealing information about himself or herself at various times throughout the play. For example, the early action takes place in Sicilia but then the reader is taken to Bohemia where it’s revealed that sixteen years have passed. The reader is left to wonder what happened in Sicilia over those years but sees from Camillo’s character that Leontes has begged forgiveness for his actions. An interesting aspect of the play format is that characters don’t have thoughts that are revealed only to the reader as thoughts. Instead, those thoughts become statements from the character to the audience in an “aside.” This is seen several...