Book #12

Pericles, a play by Shakespeare, is the first full play that I’ve read since high school.  Last summer the kids and I had a “Shakespeare month” where we read kid-versions of several plays and watched kid-version videos.  This was great exposure to the language and the stories, but it hardly prepared me for this play. 

I remember a comment from my dad—“Shakespeare is meant to be watched, not read,” so I thought I would start by watching the play.  The play is less than 100 pages, but the video was almost 3 hours long.  The director of the video added what Shakespeare left out—how the actors were to act and move (I’m not an actor, so I don’t know what the technical term is).  When I began reading the play, I was able to picture what was going on and understood the story a little bit better. 

The story starts with young Pericles solving a riddle about the incest between a king and his daughter.  Instead of being turned off by this information, Pericles wants to marry the daughter.  The king wanted to kill Pericles for his knowledge, though.  When Pericles runs away his boat is caught in a storm and he washes up on land and somehow gets invited to dine with the king and his daughter and other knights.  It seems as though the king doesn’t recognize Pericles because he allows/encourages Pericles and his daughter, Thaisa to marry. 

After their marriage, Pericles and Thaisa must return to Tyre, Pericles’ homeland.  On the way Thaisa dies in childbirth.  They put her body in a trunk and throw her overboard.  She washes ashore and the people who find her bring her back to life and she lives in a temple as one of the goddess, Diana’s, helpers. 

The baby is a girl.  Pericles names her Marina and takes her to Tarsus to be raised by Cleon and Dionyza.  Because of jealousy, Dionyza plans to have Marina killed, but the attempt is unsuccessful, and instead she is kidnapped and taken to be a prostitute on another island.  She is rescued by the governor of the land. 

Poor Pericles thinks his wife and daughter are dead.  He is miserable and mourns his loss.  He is reunited with both at the end and they all go to the land of Thaisa’s now-dead father to live. 

I think I understood the story, but I didn’t understand the meaning.  The incest confused me and so did how the king treated Pericles the second time they meet.  I don’t know what I was supposed to get out of it or the reason it was chosen for my class.  I hope that continued exposure will help me gain a better understanding of Shakespeare. 

***Disclamer--Doing a little research (history, author, plot line, etc.) before reading a book is important.  I did a little research after I read the book and wrote this post and realized that I made a big mistake.  It made me laugh.  If I paid more attention to names I would have realized the mistake on my own.  The first king and princess that Pericles met were not the same people that he eventually married.  After Pericles discovered the secret of incest and was chased away by the king, the king's palace was struck by lightening and they died.  When I went back and looked, I saw that their names weren't even similar.  I think this is the fault of the movie.  The charachters looked the same, so I made an assumption and failed to pay attention to the name.****