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A Man Behaving Badly and the Woman Who Loves Him
Tara Ison
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Cymbeline hinges on a pet Shakespearean device: an honorable man, madly in love with an honorable heroine is manipulated by a sadistic villain into believing his woman has been untrue. Here, Iachimo, having failed an outright seduction of Imogen, manages to observe her while she sleeps, and his report of the mark on her breast (oh, those stains!) sends Posthumus over the edge. Posthumus's default coping mechanism: to kill his wife. (Or, at least, tell his servant to do it.) And this is a comedy, a frolic, a romp (well, technically a tragic-comedy, with a few historical and pastoral elements tossed in), meaning the natural order is restored in the end, misunderstandings are cleared up, anyone who deserves to be dead is dead, and, most important, the lovers are reunited and will live happily ever after. All is forgiven. (There is no actual "forgiveness" moment between Imogen and Posthumus for his ordering her death. But we can assume she's over it.) As in so many of Shakespeare's comedies, the man who has behaved badly is rewarded, at the end, by the renewed love of the virtuous woman. And while it is always the man who behaves badly in these love stories (the benignly waspish Kate doesn't count), that isn't a "pro-woman" point of view (Ah, women are so strong and enlightened, men are such childish churls!), or even a "pro-love" point of view-not when a hero's sexualized violence is meant as evidence of true passion. Clearly, we are meant to find this kind of thing wildly romantic and charming, and perhaps in Shakespeare's day it was. But this just isn't the stuff anymore of frolic, of romp; it's pathology, not passion. It's more like comedy à la Neil LaBute-love as laceration, an idea of "romance" that is far less about male-female relationships than it is about male-male power dynamics, their strains of loyalty, competitiveness, and sexual insecurity. (And are such depictions of hyper-amped male possessiveness and jealousy actually exploring this behavior, or, in fact, assuming it to be the natural order?) Iachimo and Posthumus's pissing contest wholly trumps Posthumus's commitment to Imogen; our villain is gambling he can deflate our hero's confidence rather than score with our heroine, and the men agree that if Iachimo wins, Imogen will no longer be worthy of future debate-she will simply cease to exist, and the two guys can then be buds. After being "tricked," oh-so-easily, into believing Imogen has betrayed him, Posthumus oh-so-quickly rages against all women, bemoaning the lack of female virtue. (Compare that to Imogen's response, on hearing Posthumus has believed the lie and wants her dead-instead of blaming men, she regrets how Posthumus might give all those good guys out there a bad name.) And when Posthumus, given "evidence" of Imogen's bloody end, wonders "how many (men)/Must murder wives much better than themselves/For wrying but a little!" it's hard not to wince, given that, on average, more than four women are murdered in this country every day by a husband or boyfriend. This is charming? How can Imogen just ignore-let alone forgive-Posthumus's actions? Do his virtues really outweigh his flaws? Does she believe his extreme behavior was actually proof of his extreme love? In the power of her own love to make him a better man? Is she strong and enlightened-or just a deluded fool? She perplexes and frustrates me, this archetypal Shakespearean heroine.
When the man I am seeing displays a hyper-amped possessiveness and jealousy I find both laughable and disturbing, my response, in the moment, is to simply ignore it, to silently balk and squirm. Then I respond with comedy: Excuse me, I joke, I am worried about malignant melanoma and you are worried about a doctor sneaking a prurient peek? We laugh it off, uneasily, and I choose to dismiss his reaction as the trivial quirk of an older man. No, worse-I choose to rationalize his concern as evidence of his deepening emotional investment in me, to recast his irrational sexual jealousy as an endearing display of male vulnerability and insecurity. I choose to reassure him of my fidelity, my commitment. I remind myself of his virtues, hoping they will outweigh his flaws. Am I being an enlightened and forgiving heroine, or a deluded fool? I perplex and frustrate myself.
And this is why I still love Shakespeare, no matter how complicated that relationship has become, because the perplexing, essential human comedy and drama of love is exactly what he both explores and assumes. He embraces the provocative and tricky mess of it all, and I'd rather be provoked than charmed. His lovely poetic puzzles are the story of our delusions, our eagerness to rant and rage and feel ambivalent extremes, our need to test and trust, to believe in both the worst and the best of someone we love, and to dream, romantically, foolishly, of the redeeming power of love. It's why-for better or worse-we put up with each other, with all of it. Both women and men. It's why we still read and grapple with a play like Cymbeline.
Tara Ison is the author of The List and A Child Out of Alcatraz, which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She lives in Los Angeles.
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