One of the most important characters in the play The Winter's Tale is Perdita.
Perdita means lost.
This name was given to her when Hermione appeared to Antigone in a dream and told him to give the name Perdita or lost to the infant.
The name, perhaps has its origins in the word perdition or perish.
Destiny is completely against Perdita from the time she is in the womb of her mother.
Although Perdita is the child of a king and queen and therefore a princess tragedy strikes her life when she is in the womb of her mother.
Her father accuses her mother of adultery while she is in the womb of her mother and her mother is imprisoned.
It is while her mother is in prison that she is born.
Her father refuses to have anything to do with her.
He orders her to be abandoned without any hope for survival.
Antigone takes her in a ship to a far flung savage place where Antigone is attacked by a savage beast and dies.
He leaves Perdita the infant, abandoned somewhere in this vast wilderness where wild beasts like bears and foxes roam.
Destiny shows kindness to the newborn infant and she catches the eye of a simple shepherd.
(An illustration of the shepherd finding the newborn Perdita --from a copy of the The Winter's Tale that I borrowed from the library.)
He has kindness in his heart and chooses to raise her.
He tells his son about this.
His son meanwhile has seen Antigone being killed by the bear and goes to find out more about this.
It is in this family of the shepherd and shepherd's son that Perdita grows.
In the second half of the play Perdita who does not know she is a princess is depicted as leading the life of a normal shepherdess.
Destiny shows kindness to her again and a prince, the son of Polixenes starts to like her.
To the son of Polixenes the idea that Perdita is not a princess does not matter.
Polixenes and Camillo finds out that the prince is spending a lot of time in the humble abode of the shepherd on account of Perdita.
Polixenes objects to the fact that his son likes Perdita on account of the idea that she is not a princess and therefore not suitable for his son.
The prince Florizell is determined to marry Perdita.
Camillo hatches a plan to take Florizell and Perdita to Sicilia to get the help of king Leontes in helping Florizell find favor with Polixenes.
This sub plot in the play reveals the importance of birth or (descent) in a marriage.
Who your parents are determines if you are noble.
If your parents are royal you also will be royal.
Polixenes does not want his son to marry a common girl.
This places obstacles in the plans of Florizell and Perdita.
But many of Perdita's actions and words reflect her royal lineage inspite of a common upbringing and several people comment on this.
Florizell and Perdita go to Sicilia to present themselves to king Leontes.
The simple shepherd and the shepherd's son along with a former courtier of Florizell also go to Leontes.
They want to give the king the information they have about Perdita since they had found her in the savage land.
The information they have is a gold necklace of Hermione, a letter from Antigone who brought her to the savage land to abandon her and other gold as well as some things the shepherd's son found with Antigone who was eaten by a bear.
During the conversation with the shepherd and the shepherd's son it was revealed that Perdita was brought in a ship by Antigone but nothing could be recovered from the ship because it was ship wrecked.
So these few items were the only evidence of Perdita's birth.
But these reveal that Perdita is Hermione's and Leontes own daughter.
Apart from her words and actions these artefacts reveal her true identity.
It is curious that the second part of the play starts with a long dialogue by father Time.
We have all heard of the adage Time will tell.
Events unfold as Time moves forward and unravels the truth about Perdita.
Until the shepherd and the shepherd's son choose to take Hermione's necklace to Sicilia and tell the story of where and how they found her the royal heritage of Perdita is not revealed.
As long as it is not revealed she and Florizell would not have Polixenes blessings.
In the play while the shepherd and the shepherd's son describe how they found Perdita they also mention that the ship in which she was brought from Sicilia is wrecked and all was lost.
As soon as the shepherd's son found the ship, it was wrecked so that all that could reveal the identity of Perdita was lost as soon as the ship was found.
Perdita's story reveals the universal theme of being lost and being found.
Many parables of Jesus allude to the theme of lost and found.
From the story of the prodigal son who left home to live out his life in riotous living and was found when he returned to his father, to the woman who lost one of her coins who searched to find the one lost coin, to the story of sheep that wanders from its fold and gets lost and the good shepherd leaving the 99 to find that one lost sheep this story of being lost and then being found is identifiable to most humans.
Another adage tells us all who wander are not lost.
Perdita is lost due to no fault of her own. She is found due to no merit on her part.
No comments:
Post a Comment