Death in Cymbeline Sara Manlowe College

In Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, death appears in many forms. Posthumus wishes death on Imogen, and, as a consequence, himself; Imogen rejects death by her own hand in favor of Pisanio’s; later, Imogen assumes the appearance of death; murder is both condemned, and exonerated where it is linked to power, as in the case of Guiderius beheading Cloten; in the case of the Queen, death is brushed past, spoken over, rendered acceptable to the degree that she was not a good person, in life. Death is mourned, and celebrated, and wished for; death lends the lighter, more fairytale elements of tricks and disguises in Cymbeline a visceral weight. There is a right way to kill someone, backed by moral reasoning, and there may be consequences or no consequences depending on one’s proximity to and relationship with power.

Posthumus, firstly, encounters death intertwined with his feelings for Imogen. When he gazes upon the ring she gave him, after hearing the false news that Iachimo has succeeded in seducing her, he says, ‘It is a basilisk unto mine eye, / kills me to look on’t’ (2.4.107-8). Her perceived betrayal, his subsequent broken heart, feels like death. This piercing feeling of betrayal quickly turns to anger – ‘O that I had her here to tear...