Scapegoating in Shakespeare's "Cymbeline" -- Mimetic Theory and Literary Study

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Date Posted: 11:22:11 03/29/08 Sat
Author: Kiernan
Subject: Scapegoating in Shakespeare's "Cymbeline"

In Shakespeare's "Cymbeline," Posthumus has just been told (falsely) that his wife is unfaithful. In an attempt to wrestle with this crisis he scapegoats the female gender:

Could I find out
The woman's part in me! For there's no motion
That tends to vice in man but I affirm
It is the woman's part, Be it lying, note it,
The woman's; flattering, hers; deceiving, hers;
Lust and rank thoughts, hers, hers; revenges, hers;
Ambitions, covetings, change of prides, disdain,
Nice longings, slanders, mutability,
All faults that have a name, nay that hell knows,
Why, hers, in part of al, but rather all. (2.5.19-28)

Here, Posthumus clearly connects all wickedness in the world with women. Earlier, he states that "we are all bastards," not from our own sins and rivalries, but because our mothers are all whores (2.5.2). The irony of the scene, however, is that Posthumus has just committed most of the sins on his list. Right before he says that women are the only ones who are vengeful, he cries out "Oh, vengeance, vengeance!" (2.5.7). He accuses women of mutability, but in the scene before he went instantly, and upon a single accusation, from loving to hating his wife. Shakespeare thus clearly demonstrates the nature of scapegoating: though we are all equally guilty, we find a party who has overstepped some sort of cultural norm (here, marriage) and make them responsible for the crisis.

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