The Winter's Tale is a wonderful drama which unfolds in a natural cycle. The events of the play pattern themselves after occurrances in nature. The opening half of the play resembles the season of winter. The first acts incorporate death and despair, jealousy and rage, age and sorrow. The closing half of the play resembles the seasons of spring or summer. These acts deal with life and hope, repentance and renewal, youth and joy.
The first half of The Winter's Tale focuses on the destruction of a family and a friendship. King Leontes accusses his loving wife, Hermione, of having an affair with Polixenes, Leontes' best friend. These accussations lead to the downfall of the relationships and they give rise to suspicions of Leontes' mental stability. The thoughts of the affair cause Leontes to fly into jealous rages and these rages result in the "death" of Hermione, Mamillius and Perdita. Leontes singlehandedly destroys his entire family. The rages and accussations also lead to the deterioration of the bond between Leontes and Polixenes. The "winter" portion of the play follows the same pattern as the actual season itself. Winter brings about the death of living things and the jealousy and rage in the first acts results in mass destruction of life and love.
The second half of the play follows the first, just as the spring season follows winter. After the death of his family, Leontes falls into a great state of remorse and repentance. The king is sorrowful for his actions and punishes himself daily for his deads. Throughtout these scenes Leontes ages. Time passes and Leontes laments the loss of his wife and children. After a harsh, winter season, when all is dead, the Earth longs for the renewal of her crops and land. Leontes' actions were similar to the longing period of the Earth. The king wished to pay for his sins, he recognized his wrongs and he longed for the return of his family. A portion of the second half of the play focuses on the waiting of the spring season. Despair, aging and sorrow filled the emptiness in Leontes' life.
After the period of sorrow and repentance, the coming of spring arrives. The final portion of the play focuses on the joy, the youth, the hope and the renewal. During spring time, the flowers begin to grow again. Mother Earth comes back to life. Just as the season, the play follows a renewal. Leontes long, lost daughter, Perdita, returns to him. Perdita returns with a youthful love of her own. The arrival of the young couple restores the broken friendship between the two kings. Leontes' repentance and remorse finally comes to an end in the final scenes with the "renewal" of Hermione. All of the desturction once apparent vanished with the coming of spring.
The events which occur in The Winter's Tale follow a definite cyclical pattern. The jealousy for Leontes leads to great destruction and his repentance leads to a renewal of life. These actions follow the pattern of the seasons. Winter destoys what is left of the land and after a brief period of waiting, spring restores what was destroyed and renews the Earth.