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Imagery of a Winter's Tale

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Toward the end of William Shakespeare’s life, his plays began to entertain a topic very different from his earlier works. Shakespeare is well known for his ability to capture the dynamics of human nature. His works have remained relevant because of how well he is able to portray the aspects of human life that never change over time, such as love, family, and human emotions. Much of his earlier work explored the consequences of certain human actions by using the storytelling technique of tragedy. Towards the end of his life he began to enlist a technique of storytelling known as the tragicomedy. These stories contained all the elements of tragedy, including death, but continued past the tragic consequences of human frailty to explore the redemption achieved through repenting of the mistakes and behaviors that produced the tragedies that took place earlier in the play. These plays of redemption are unique for their happy endings. Although all of Shakespeare’s plays are layered with imagery, his later tragicomedies tend to have some very strong religious undertones attached to the redemption concept he began exploring through them. One of his last plays, The Winter’s Tale, is a great example of how Shakespeare used his gift for imagery to enrich his stories with deeper, almost hidden meanings. Throughout The Winter’s Tale Shakespeare uses the imagery of lambs to lead his audience to a deeper understanding of the story he is telling. One of the first examples of this use is found in Polixene’s conversation with Leontes about their childhood friendship. “We were as twinn'd lambs that did frisk i' the sun, and bleat the one at the other: what we changed was innocence for innocence; we knew not the doctrine of ill-doing, nor dream'd that any did. Had we pursued that life, and our weak spirits ne'er been higher rear'd with stronger blood, we should have answer'd heaven boldly 'not guilty;' the imposition clear'd hereditary ours.

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