Breakups, Betrayals, Toxic Friends – Shakespeare’s Plays are a Survival Guide for the Modern World
Does the current chaos in the world feel unprecedented?
It did to me until I revisited a Shakespeare play that I literally hated when I read it for a class in college.
What play could evoke such a feeling of disgust in a self-proclaimed bardophile?
The Winter’s Tale.
If you haven’t seen it, there is an excellent production with the late Antony Sher as the paranoid and toxic betrayer, Leontes, available on YouTube.
The bottom line is that Leontes, King of Sicilia, is a royal asshole, who despite having a loving pregnant wife (Hermione) and young son (Mamillius), a best friend since childhood (Polixenes) who rules a nearby land, and a household full of dedicated workers (especially Camillo, Antigonus, and Paulina), ruins everything in a fit of paranoia run amok.
When his completely unfounded fear of an affair between his wife and best friend takes over, he banishes his wife, denies paternity of his unborn child, tries to poison his best friend, and in the process, kills his young son.
It sounds like an unbelievable soap opera plot, but it turns out to be a lesson about the power of friendship and forgiveness.
Because Shakespeare.
Have you ever been paralyzed by a betrayal, sent into a spiral of grief and confusion?
Have you ever lost a loved one, wondering where your foundation went?
Have you ever suffered a breakup that you never saw coming, causing you to doubt everything you thought you knew?
That’s exactly what Shakespeare’s characters experience in The Winter’s Tale, and through their actions, the bard offers us a survival guide to navigating those traumatic events.
Here’s how:
1. By standing up for what’s right (Camillo). When Leontes betrays his trusted advisor, Camillo, asking him to murder Polixenes by poisoning, Camillo refuses. He doesn’t blindly follow the dictates of his king; instead, he warns Polixenes of the plot and helps him escape back to his home in Bohemia.
2. By standing up for what’s right (Paulina): Hermione delivers her baby, Perdita, while in prison awaiting her trial for infidelity, and Hermione’s best friend, Paulina, takes the baby to Leontes to persuade him to abandon his tyrannous, weak-hinged fancy and reconcile with his family. Leontes refuses to acknowledge the baby, and orders Paulina to be thrown into the fire with the “bastard child.”
3. By standing up for what’s right (Antigonus): Paulina’s husband, Antigonus, talks Leontes out of throwing Paulina and the baby into the fire, and instead agrees to deposit little Perdita in a “remote and desert place.” When a bear appears, set on attacking the baby, Antigonus leads the bear away in probably one of the most famous stage directions in the history of theater: “Exit, pursued by a bear.”
4. By leaning on your support system (Hermione): Hermione has lost nearly everything – her husband, her son, her newborn baby, and her freedom. What she has, however, is the ardent support of her friend, Paulina, who does everything in her power to save Hermione. Shakespeare leaves it up to us to decide whether Hermione dies when she hears news that her son has been struck down, or whether she is being sequestered by Paulina in hopes that she will someday reunite with Perdita. In any case, Hermione’s happy ending is orchestrated by the staunch support of her friend.
5. By leaning on your support system (Polixenes): When Polixenes is betrayed, he follows the advice of his long-time friend Camillo, who helps him escape back to Bohemia and convinces him that his son, Florizel’s new girlfriend, Perdita, is actually a princess who will someday become a cherished queen of his land.
6. By leaning on your support system (Leontes): In the biggest twist of all, after Mamillius dies, Perdita is banished, Antigonus is killed by a bear, Camillo has fled to Bohemia with Polixenes, and Hermione is believed dead, Leontes comes to his senses and spends 16 years torturing himself for his tragic stupidity. When Leontes thinks all is lost, Polixenes and Camillo return to Sicilia with Perdita betrothed to Florizel, and Paulina reveals a statue of Hermione that magically comes to life in act v.
It takes a sixteen-year gap of time and the courageous acts of friends and family, but everyone is united and forgiven in the end.
Two simple takeaways from The Winter’s Tale that might be applicable today:
When chaos strikes, take action to pursue what we know is right.
When we’re lost, reach out to friends, family, and community for support.
Not only does Shakespeare show us how to survive individual and collective chaos, but there is modern mental health science to explain how these mechanisms work in our brains and bodies. If you’re interested and want to learn more about the value of friendship and how it supports our mental health, check out my upcoming book, Shakespeare’s Guide to Living the Good Life, available for pre-order here.