Jealousy, Adoption and Love in: the Winter's Tale and Sleeping Beauty
Chelsea Backus
March 20, 2011
First Paper/Final Draft
Shakespeare
Shade Gomez
Jealousy, Adoption and Love in: The Winter’s Tale and Sleeping Beauty
When is it okay to be jealous, to be adopted or to fall in love? Lives are damaged and people killed because of the power in jealousy, adoption or love. This is proven and displayed throughout two different sources, William Shakespeare’s play, The Winter’s Tale and Walt Disney’s movie, Sleeping Beauty. Although both are very different, the movie and the play show these dominant themes. Whether the movie and play are comparing Maleficent and Leontes’ jealousy, Perdita and Aurora’s “adoption” or the love between a Prince and a peasant girl, there are many ways to claim these themes for both sources. These three elements can create disaster and heartbreak or create truth and beauty. There are excessive definitions for the word jealousy, and various ways to be jealous of others. Shakespeare’s character Leontes is the embodiment of a covetous lover, suspicious or fearful of being displaced by a rival. Only his “rival” is his childhood best friend, Polixenes. Disney’s character Maleficent can be defined as one being jealous of the success of others, resentful or bitter in rivalry, in other words, envious. Because of their jealousy issues, both characters ruin the lives of others around them. Whether it is Leontes wanting Polixenes dead and his Queen in jail, or Maleficent casting a spell on the newly born princess to die on her sixteenth birthday. In the play, Leontes wants his good friend Polixenes to stay in Sicilia, so he asks his wife and Queen, Hermione to persuade him, and when she does Leontes jumps to a ridiculous conclusion leading to a response that only can direct to things getting worse: Too hot, too hot!/ To mingle friendship far is mingling bloods./ I have tremor cordis on me: my heart dances,/ But not for joy, not joy…O, that is entertainment/ My bosom likes not, nor my brows.
March 20, 2011
First Paper/Final Draft
Shakespeare
Shade Gomez
Jealousy, Adoption and Love in: The Winter’s Tale and Sleeping Beauty
When is it okay to be jealous, to be adopted or to fall in love? Lives are damaged and people killed because of the power in jealousy, adoption or love. This is proven and displayed throughout two different sources, William Shakespeare’s play, The Winter’s Tale and Walt Disney’s movie, Sleeping Beauty. Although both are very different, the movie and the play show these dominant themes. Whether the movie and play are comparing Maleficent and Leontes’ jealousy, Perdita and Aurora’s “adoption” or the love between a Prince and a peasant girl, there are many ways to claim these themes for both sources. These three elements can create disaster and heartbreak or create truth and beauty. There are excessive definitions for the word jealousy, and various ways to be jealous of others. Shakespeare’s character Leontes is the embodiment of a covetous lover, suspicious or fearful of being displaced by a rival. Only his “rival” is his childhood best friend, Polixenes. Disney’s character Maleficent can be defined as one being jealous of the success of others, resentful or bitter in rivalry, in other words, envious. Because of their jealousy issues, both characters ruin the lives of others around them. Whether it is Leontes wanting Polixenes dead and his Queen in jail, or Maleficent casting a spell on the newly born princess to die on her sixteenth birthday. In the play, Leontes wants his good friend Polixenes to stay in Sicilia, so he asks his wife and Queen, Hermione to persuade him, and when she does Leontes jumps to a ridiculous conclusion leading to a response that only can direct to things getting worse: Too hot, too hot!/ To mingle friendship far is mingling bloods./ I have tremor cordis on me: my heart dances,/ But not for joy, not joy…O, that is entertainment/ My bosom likes not, nor my brows.
Cited: Cohen, Derek. "Patriarchy and Jealousy in Othello and The Winter 's Tale." University of Washington (1987): 207. Web. 20 Mar 2011. <http://mlq.dukejournals.org/cgi/pdf_extract/48/3/207>.