Time: “I that please some, try all, both joy and terror
Of good and bad, that makes and unfolds error,
Now take upon me, in the name of Time,
To use my wings.” (4.1.1-4)
I am interested in Shakespeare’s choice to give time agency to tell the audience that 16 years have passed. The use of binaries in this passage stood out to me. The use of both “joy and terror” and “good and bad” reminded me of Deleuze’s post-structuralist theory of binaries. In the theory Deleuze argues in between the binaries exists a paradox of moving in both directions where becoming or unbecoming takes place. Following this, the character of Time literally represents this divide between past and future in which the identities of Leontes and Perdita have experienced periods of unbecoming in the case of Leontes and becoming for Perdita.
For example, Leontes is described as “leaving/ Th’effects of his fond jealousies so grieving/ That he shuts up himself” (4.1.17-19). Leontes has removed himself from the public sphere and consequently reduced his masculine identity that, according to Brientenburg, can only be fortified by public discourse. Simultaneously, Perdita is described as having “grown in grace/ Equal with wond’ring” (4.1.24-25). In this passage of time the two binaries of Leontes and Perdita move in opposite directions as if the growth of one means the deterioration of the other. The character of Hermione in this section appears to be stagnant in death; however, as we will later learn in Act V Hermione actually existed in a state between life and death, waiting for Paulina to awaken her. I am curious what effect this state of limbo has on the binary centered power structure between Hermione and Leontes, does it challenge their dominant/ submissive identities by upending the legitimacy of binaries such as life and death?
Haley–this is absolutely fascinating, and I hope you will bring up in class today! Time is a pivotal figure here, acting as a kind of hinge between tragedy and comedy, and your reading of the liminality of that space is really terrific!
Something I have wondered throughout the play is what on earth is the purpose of Autolycus. He serves as an effective medium through which the audience can gather information, because as a con artist, we don’t question how he ends up privy to such different information. But, I figure he has to have a larger person. I couldn’t decide if he was the unabashed version of evil and the fact that he is almost exclusively in disguise demonstrates the evil everywhere, through all walks of life.
While I don’t understand his role, it serves to bring about interesting notions of the innateness of class. Having read a few of Shakespeare’s other “problem plays,” the misplaced daughters are always somehow better than everyone around them, despite the low class status they often have. Perdita is no exception to his and when Polixenes and Camillo come to her party in disguise, they keep commenting on how she seems like somewhere of more noble birth than she has. In one instance he says “This is the prettiest low-born lass that ever/ran on the green-sward: nothing she does or seems/but smacks of something greater than herself,/too noble for this place (IV. IV. 156-8). Even though she was raised her entire life as a shepherd’s daughter, she is perceived as more noble. This indicated to me to suggest that class was not merely the way you are raised, it is something that you are born into and it will reveal itself. The opposite of this is also shown through the Clown who is so excited to become a gentleman and believes that it something which he can now achieve since his sister is to be a queen. He talks to Autolycus saying, “but I was a gentleman born before my father; for the king’s son took me by the hand, and called me brother” (V. II. 139-140). This seemed to mock the idea that one can rise above their station because the Clown is claiming to be born a gentleman before his father, because he was called brother by a prince before him. This again seemed to reinforce the idea that class is something innate.
In a similar vein, I thought the party scene painted an interesting portrait in the difference of materialism between the classes. The lower class women are begging their lovers to buy them different worthless knick-knacks from Autolycus. Polixenes asks a disguised Florizel why he does not purchase any gifts for Perdita and he responds “She prizes not such trifles as these are:/ the gifts she looks from me are pack’d and lock’d/up in my heart, which I have given already” (IV.IV. 355). This suggested that the upper class is somehow less materialistic than the lower-class and that they can have a more authentic love because all Perdita needs is Florizel’s love to be content. It made it seem as if the upper class was above material goods, but by definition they have more access to these goods than the lower class people, so it seemed like Florizel trying to make him and Perdita seem superior to the rest.
very interesting comments, Colleen–I think you’re right that the play does seem to uphold a notion of “innate” nobility that shines through material disadvantage–what is ironic is the speech about the gillyvors when Perdita seems to be arguing against what she believes her own situation is–namely, she argues against marrying the ‘baser’ plant to “bud of noble scion”–a position that Polixenes, equally ironically, argues for…
After reading the last scene of the play (several times), I am still left with so many questions. Was Hermione resurrected, or had she merely faked her death with help from Paulina, only to reemerge in society once she felt Leontes to be penitent enough? I think I lean towards the latter, because in a play that is more realistic, a fantastical ending would seem out of place. To me, the more pressing question is what does Shakespeare accomplish by having Hermione return? It brings the play to a happy ending, making it easier to gloss over what transpired in the first three acts. We don’t actually see Leontes grieve or change his ways; that happens offstage and time is supposed to heal everything. Instead, we’re told to forgive the man who imprisoned his wife, supposedly caused her death, definitely caused his son’s death, and left his daughter to die, because everyone else does. It’s expected for the audience to extend more leniency to this man than he extended to his wife, even though the crimes he committed were actually real. He still holds power over the way that the narrative surrounding his guilt and repentance is structured, which Hermione notably lacks. Furthermore, even with the happy ending, there’s still a hole where Mamillius was. Hermione might have been resurrected but he was not. I am not sure whether the audience is supposed to not notice these things for the sake of the play ending as a comedy, or whether we’re supposed to be left uneasy about the things not said, which complicates the genre.
These are excellent observations, Shelby–really good work. Yes, I agree that the WT seems to stage a dramatically “happy” ending, but also to point to certain losses that are never recuperated–the loss of Mamillius is recalled by his “mirror” image in Florizel, and Antigonus is mourned as “never to return” by Paulina. More today on this complicated ending!
I’m still grappling with how to feel about the ending of The Winter’s Tale. Why was the most dramatic part, the climax, told through the eyes of an objective party—people who had no role in the story before this scene? Granted, the way the two gentlemen describe how the scene unfolds is quite vivid and it’s almost like we’re in the actual scene, but still not quite. “Who was most marble there changed colour; some swooned, all sorrowed; if all the world could have seen’t, the woe had been universal” (5.2.75). What I do find very interesting is the next scene, the one that we actually get to partake in. This scene is primarily between Paulina and Leontes, admiring the statue of Hermione. Up until this point there hadn’t been any hint of magic or witchcraft, which is certainly not the norm for most Shakespeare tragedies. When Paulina hints at her abilities, “I’ll make the statue move indeed, descend/and take you by the hand—but then you’ll think/which I protest against, I am assisted/by wicked powers”(5.3.85), it takes us by surprise.
The fact that Paulina is a witch and has been a witch all along, makes us wonder what Paulina’s motives have been from the beginning, or rather what Shakespeare’s motives with this character have been. Just the fact that Paulina is talkative and willing to confront Leontes is extremely rebellious, this rebellion is easily dispelled when she reveals that she is a witch. In this setting, it’s not fathomable that a woman could naturally speak her mind and be so strong-willed, there must be some sort of supernatural explanation. And because Leontes benefits so much from this, he does not ostracize Paulina but rather praises her skills. “If this be magic, let it be an art” (5.3.110). In fact, there are no ramifications for Paulina’s witchcraft, aside from the arranged marriage between Paulina and Camillo. If witchcraft directly benefits rather than disadvantages the powerful man in question, that is when it’s deemed socially acceptable.
really good and pertinent questions, Mel! You are right to wonder about why S chooses only to relate the discovery of Perdita’s identity–I think it has something to do with this wish to juxtapose the art of tale telling (telling) with the art of drama (showing)–which he goes on to do in the statue scene. I think the question of Paulina’s magic is an interesting one, and our answer will depend on what we think has gone on for the 16 years that Hermione has been “dead”…more later!
I am really interested in the character of Paulina, especially after finishing the play. She is the embodiment of negative female characteristics, yet she is, in some ways, the hero of the play. There is a lot of focus on her mouth and speech, specifically in regards to her anger as a woman. Before going to tell Leontes off, she states, “The office / becomes a woman best. I’ll take ‘t upon me. / If I prove honey-mouthed, let my tongue blister / And never to my red-looked anger be / The trumpet anymore” (2.2.40-44). Here, she regards the tongue as the locus of her power, and states that if she lies, she should never give voice to anger again. Here, her angry speech is not itself a problem; its truth makes it righteous.
She further disregards threats and punishments by villainizing those who perform them. When Leontes threatens to have her burnt, she replies, “It is an heretic that makes the fire, / Not she which burns in ‘t” (2.3.148-9). The usage of the feminine pronoun here seems to specifically refer to the burnings of women and calls the punitive practices of powerful men like Leontes into question.
Undoubtedly, Paulina is a shrew; no matter how many times she is told to stop talking, she continues, even when being physically pushed out of the room. Her voice also infuriates and has debilitating effects on Leontes, coming back to Carson’s “The Sound of Gender.” In the fifth act, she continually brings up Leontes’ losses, an act which causes him great pain. It is through her speech that she controls him. To get him to vow to never take another wife, she says that if she were Hermione’s ghost and looked into the eyes of the new bride, “I’d shriek, that even your ears / Should rift to hear me, and the words that followed / Should be ‘Remember mine.'” (5.1.79-81). This prompts Leontes’s promise. It is the invocation of the terrible shriek which keeps him under Paulina’s shrewish control, and it is striking to me that this relationship is not presented more negatively.
She further subverts the notion of a witch, using magic to bring Hermione back to life. Again, it is a speech she gives that causes this transformation. Her “witchcraft,” likewise, is repeatedly assured (by Paulina) to not be wicked magic, but good magic. Paulina is a woman who hurls abuse at a king and ultimately controls him, while her speech is powerful enough to bring a statue to life (back to life? The magic is unclear). I am still struggling to reconcile her immense rhetoric power with her gender and presumably positive portrayal.
excellent!!! You are absolutely right about the centrality of Paulina, and the ways in which she subverts some of the roles and attitudes assigned to women–she IS a shrew, and yet her shrewishness is shown not only to be right but to have some kind of magical? power…
As I have been reading The Winter’s Tale and engaging in recent class discussions, what has particularly interested me is the juxtaposition of the two Beyond the Page sessions, as well as the similarities between the scenes the actors wrestled with. For the Taming of the Shrew session, the actors came prepared with two distinct interpretations of the scene that they performed for us and asked us questions about. Act 2 Scene 1 of that play is a private, primarily one-on-one interaction in which Petruchio obviously has the upper hand. For the Winter’s Tale session, the actors had obviously wrestled with the scene and discussed it extensively, but the performance they gave was much more of a workshop than a final product; indeed, Lindsey and the other actors frequently asked us questions and for feedback, and even shanghaied some of us into joining them on “stage” as passersby in the scene. By contrast, Act 2 Scene 1 of The Winter’s Tale is a public, multi-character interaction in which Hermione ends up arguably having the upper hand (by convincing/persuading Polixenes to stay longer with her and Leontes).
However, there are some intriguing similarities between the scenes (and between the processes of the Beyond the Page actors) that I have been thinking quite a lot about. The main similarity I will discuss in this blog post is the theme of gender performance, which I believe is central to both scenes. In Taming of the Shrew, Petruchio’s performed role is very dominant and authoritative, or extremely persuasive and (mainly sexually) seductive, depending on how the actors interpret the scene. Meanwhile, Katherine’s performed role is either traditionally shrew-like or fairly coy/flirtatious, depending on how the actors interpret the scene. In Winter’s Tale, Hermione’s performed role is quite persuasive and seductive, although we must keep in mind that she is visibly pregnant (practically ready to give birth; indeed, the RSC version had her having a contraction in the background). Meanwhile, Leontes and Polixenes play up the “bromance”, but at the same time, Leontes is subtly competing against Polixenes for the attention/affection of Hermione, a dynamic which causes their interaction to shift to being a bit more tense, maybe even matter-of-fact when the public nature of the scene is taken into account. I regret that this blog post didn’t have more of a through line or cohesive narrative, but it is an unflinchingly honest portrayal of my thoughts over the past several days, so I went with honesty because an actor’s performance of a character should be similarly honest.
very good and thoughtful comments, Mark. I liked your reflection on the work of the actors, and I also thought your comparison of the two scenes brought out some interestingly similar directorial kinds of questions–particularly about how to perform the female character’s rhetorical strength…just the kind of free range thought you should be able to do in a blog post!
October 16, 2019 at 8:43 pm
Time: “I that please some, try all, both joy and terror
Of good and bad, that makes and unfolds error,
Now take upon me, in the name of Time,
To use my wings.” (4.1.1-4)
I am interested in Shakespeare’s choice to give time agency to tell the audience that 16 years have passed. The use of binaries in this passage stood out to me. The use of both “joy and terror” and “good and bad” reminded me of Deleuze’s post-structuralist theory of binaries. In the theory Deleuze argues in between the binaries exists a paradox of moving in both directions where becoming or unbecoming takes place. Following this, the character of Time literally represents this divide between past and future in which the identities of Leontes and Perdita have experienced periods of unbecoming in the case of Leontes and becoming for Perdita.
For example, Leontes is described as “leaving/ Th’effects of his fond jealousies so grieving/ That he shuts up himself” (4.1.17-19). Leontes has removed himself from the public sphere and consequently reduced his masculine identity that, according to Brientenburg, can only be fortified by public discourse. Simultaneously, Perdita is described as having “grown in grace/ Equal with wond’ring” (4.1.24-25). In this passage of time the two binaries of Leontes and Perdita move in opposite directions as if the growth of one means the deterioration of the other. The character of Hermione in this section appears to be stagnant in death; however, as we will later learn in Act V Hermione actually existed in a state between life and death, waiting for Paulina to awaken her. I am curious what effect this state of limbo has on the binary centered power structure between Hermione and Leontes, does it challenge their dominant/ submissive identities by upending the legitimacy of binaries such as life and death?
October 17, 2019 at 9:51 am
Haley–this is absolutely fascinating, and I hope you will bring up in class today! Time is a pivotal figure here, acting as a kind of hinge between tragedy and comedy, and your reading of the liminality of that space is really terrific!
October 16, 2019 at 4:53 pm
Something I have wondered throughout the play is what on earth is the purpose of Autolycus. He serves as an effective medium through which the audience can gather information, because as a con artist, we don’t question how he ends up privy to such different information. But, I figure he has to have a larger person. I couldn’t decide if he was the unabashed version of evil and the fact that he is almost exclusively in disguise demonstrates the evil everywhere, through all walks of life.
While I don’t understand his role, it serves to bring about interesting notions of the innateness of class. Having read a few of Shakespeare’s other “problem plays,” the misplaced daughters are always somehow better than everyone around them, despite the low class status they often have. Perdita is no exception to his and when Polixenes and Camillo come to her party in disguise, they keep commenting on how she seems like somewhere of more noble birth than she has. In one instance he says “This is the prettiest low-born lass that ever/ran on the green-sward: nothing she does or seems/but smacks of something greater than herself,/too noble for this place (IV. IV. 156-8). Even though she was raised her entire life as a shepherd’s daughter, she is perceived as more noble. This indicated to me to suggest that class was not merely the way you are raised, it is something that you are born into and it will reveal itself. The opposite of this is also shown through the Clown who is so excited to become a gentleman and believes that it something which he can now achieve since his sister is to be a queen. He talks to Autolycus saying, “but I was a gentleman born before my father; for the king’s son took me by the hand, and called me brother” (V. II. 139-140). This seemed to mock the idea that one can rise above their station because the Clown is claiming to be born a gentleman before his father, because he was called brother by a prince before him. This again seemed to reinforce the idea that class is something innate.
In a similar vein, I thought the party scene painted an interesting portrait in the difference of materialism between the classes. The lower class women are begging their lovers to buy them different worthless knick-knacks from Autolycus. Polixenes asks a disguised Florizel why he does not purchase any gifts for Perdita and he responds “She prizes not such trifles as these are:/ the gifts she looks from me are pack’d and lock’d/up in my heart, which I have given already” (IV.IV. 355). This suggested that the upper class is somehow less materialistic than the lower-class and that they can have a more authentic love because all Perdita needs is Florizel’s love to be content. It made it seem as if the upper class was above material goods, but by definition they have more access to these goods than the lower class people, so it seemed like Florizel trying to make him and Perdita seem superior to the rest.
October 16, 2019 at 4:55 pm
sorry for some reason my paragraph breaks did not come through … it’s supposed to be three paragraphs not one monster one
October 17, 2019 at 9:53 am
very interesting comments, Colleen–I think you’re right that the play does seem to uphold a notion of “innate” nobility that shines through material disadvantage–what is ironic is the speech about the gillyvors when Perdita seems to be arguing against what she believes her own situation is–namely, she argues against marrying the ‘baser’ plant to “bud of noble scion”–a position that Polixenes, equally ironically, argues for…
October 16, 2019 at 4:36 pm
After reading the last scene of the play (several times), I am still left with so many questions. Was Hermione resurrected, or had she merely faked her death with help from Paulina, only to reemerge in society once she felt Leontes to be penitent enough? I think I lean towards the latter, because in a play that is more realistic, a fantastical ending would seem out of place. To me, the more pressing question is what does Shakespeare accomplish by having Hermione return? It brings the play to a happy ending, making it easier to gloss over what transpired in the first three acts. We don’t actually see Leontes grieve or change his ways; that happens offstage and time is supposed to heal everything. Instead, we’re told to forgive the man who imprisoned his wife, supposedly caused her death, definitely caused his son’s death, and left his daughter to die, because everyone else does. It’s expected for the audience to extend more leniency to this man than he extended to his wife, even though the crimes he committed were actually real. He still holds power over the way that the narrative surrounding his guilt and repentance is structured, which Hermione notably lacks. Furthermore, even with the happy ending, there’s still a hole where Mamillius was. Hermione might have been resurrected but he was not. I am not sure whether the audience is supposed to not notice these things for the sake of the play ending as a comedy, or whether we’re supposed to be left uneasy about the things not said, which complicates the genre.
October 17, 2019 at 9:55 am
These are excellent observations, Shelby–really good work. Yes, I agree that the WT seems to stage a dramatically “happy” ending, but also to point to certain losses that are never recuperated–the loss of Mamillius is recalled by his “mirror” image in Florizel, and Antigonus is mourned as “never to return” by Paulina. More today on this complicated ending!
October 16, 2019 at 12:14 am
I’m still grappling with how to feel about the ending of The Winter’s Tale. Why was the most dramatic part, the climax, told through the eyes of an objective party—people who had no role in the story before this scene? Granted, the way the two gentlemen describe how the scene unfolds is quite vivid and it’s almost like we’re in the actual scene, but still not quite. “Who was most marble there changed colour; some swooned, all sorrowed; if all the world could have seen’t, the woe had been universal” (5.2.75). What I do find very interesting is the next scene, the one that we actually get to partake in. This scene is primarily between Paulina and Leontes, admiring the statue of Hermione. Up until this point there hadn’t been any hint of magic or witchcraft, which is certainly not the norm for most Shakespeare tragedies. When Paulina hints at her abilities, “I’ll make the statue move indeed, descend/and take you by the hand—but then you’ll think/which I protest against, I am assisted/by wicked powers”(5.3.85), it takes us by surprise.
The fact that Paulina is a witch and has been a witch all along, makes us wonder what Paulina’s motives have been from the beginning, or rather what Shakespeare’s motives with this character have been. Just the fact that Paulina is talkative and willing to confront Leontes is extremely rebellious, this rebellion is easily dispelled when she reveals that she is a witch. In this setting, it’s not fathomable that a woman could naturally speak her mind and be so strong-willed, there must be some sort of supernatural explanation. And because Leontes benefits so much from this, he does not ostracize Paulina but rather praises her skills. “If this be magic, let it be an art” (5.3.110). In fact, there are no ramifications for Paulina’s witchcraft, aside from the arranged marriage between Paulina and Camillo. If witchcraft directly benefits rather than disadvantages the powerful man in question, that is when it’s deemed socially acceptable.
October 17, 2019 at 10:31 am
really good and pertinent questions, Mel! You are right to wonder about why S chooses only to relate the discovery of Perdita’s identity–I think it has something to do with this wish to juxtapose the art of tale telling (telling) with the art of drama (showing)–which he goes on to do in the statue scene. I think the question of Paulina’s magic is an interesting one, and our answer will depend on what we think has gone on for the 16 years that Hermione has been “dead”…more later!
October 14, 2019 at 11:25 pm
I am really interested in the character of Paulina, especially after finishing the play. She is the embodiment of negative female characteristics, yet she is, in some ways, the hero of the play. There is a lot of focus on her mouth and speech, specifically in regards to her anger as a woman. Before going to tell Leontes off, she states, “The office / becomes a woman best. I’ll take ‘t upon me. / If I prove honey-mouthed, let my tongue blister / And never to my red-looked anger be / The trumpet anymore” (2.2.40-44). Here, she regards the tongue as the locus of her power, and states that if she lies, she should never give voice to anger again. Here, her angry speech is not itself a problem; its truth makes it righteous.
She further disregards threats and punishments by villainizing those who perform them. When Leontes threatens to have her burnt, she replies, “It is an heretic that makes the fire, / Not she which burns in ‘t” (2.3.148-9). The usage of the feminine pronoun here seems to specifically refer to the burnings of women and calls the punitive practices of powerful men like Leontes into question.
Undoubtedly, Paulina is a shrew; no matter how many times she is told to stop talking, she continues, even when being physically pushed out of the room. Her voice also infuriates and has debilitating effects on Leontes, coming back to Carson’s “The Sound of Gender.” In the fifth act, she continually brings up Leontes’ losses, an act which causes him great pain. It is through her speech that she controls him. To get him to vow to never take another wife, she says that if she were Hermione’s ghost and looked into the eyes of the new bride, “I’d shriek, that even your ears / Should rift to hear me, and the words that followed / Should be ‘Remember mine.'” (5.1.79-81). This prompts Leontes’s promise. It is the invocation of the terrible shriek which keeps him under Paulina’s shrewish control, and it is striking to me that this relationship is not presented more negatively.
She further subverts the notion of a witch, using magic to bring Hermione back to life. Again, it is a speech she gives that causes this transformation. Her “witchcraft,” likewise, is repeatedly assured (by Paulina) to not be wicked magic, but good magic. Paulina is a woman who hurls abuse at a king and ultimately controls him, while her speech is powerful enough to bring a statue to life (back to life? The magic is unclear). I am still struggling to reconcile her immense rhetoric power with her gender and presumably positive portrayal.
October 15, 2019 at 10:15 am
excellent!!! You are absolutely right about the centrality of Paulina, and the ways in which she subverts some of the roles and attitudes assigned to women–she IS a shrew, and yet her shrewishness is shown not only to be right but to have some kind of magical? power…
October 14, 2019 at 9:13 pm
As I have been reading The Winter’s Tale and engaging in recent class discussions, what has particularly interested me is the juxtaposition of the two Beyond the Page sessions, as well as the similarities between the scenes the actors wrestled with. For the Taming of the Shrew session, the actors came prepared with two distinct interpretations of the scene that they performed for us and asked us questions about. Act 2 Scene 1 of that play is a private, primarily one-on-one interaction in which Petruchio obviously has the upper hand. For the Winter’s Tale session, the actors had obviously wrestled with the scene and discussed it extensively, but the performance they gave was much more of a workshop than a final product; indeed, Lindsey and the other actors frequently asked us questions and for feedback, and even shanghaied some of us into joining them on “stage” as passersby in the scene. By contrast, Act 2 Scene 1 of The Winter’s Tale is a public, multi-character interaction in which Hermione ends up arguably having the upper hand (by convincing/persuading Polixenes to stay longer with her and Leontes).
However, there are some intriguing similarities between the scenes (and between the processes of the Beyond the Page actors) that I have been thinking quite a lot about. The main similarity I will discuss in this blog post is the theme of gender performance, which I believe is central to both scenes. In Taming of the Shrew, Petruchio’s performed role is very dominant and authoritative, or extremely persuasive and (mainly sexually) seductive, depending on how the actors interpret the scene. Meanwhile, Katherine’s performed role is either traditionally shrew-like or fairly coy/flirtatious, depending on how the actors interpret the scene. In Winter’s Tale, Hermione’s performed role is quite persuasive and seductive, although we must keep in mind that she is visibly pregnant (practically ready to give birth; indeed, the RSC version had her having a contraction in the background). Meanwhile, Leontes and Polixenes play up the “bromance”, but at the same time, Leontes is subtly competing against Polixenes for the attention/affection of Hermione, a dynamic which causes their interaction to shift to being a bit more tense, maybe even matter-of-fact when the public nature of the scene is taken into account. I regret that this blog post didn’t have more of a through line or cohesive narrative, but it is an unflinchingly honest portrayal of my thoughts over the past several days, so I went with honesty because an actor’s performance of a character should be similarly honest.
October 15, 2019 at 10:19 am
very good and thoughtful comments, Mark. I liked your reflection on the work of the actors, and I also thought your comparison of the two scenes brought out some interestingly similar directorial kinds of questions–particularly about how to perform the female character’s rhetorical strength…just the kind of free range thought you should be able to do in a blog post!