Foil

Character Role Analysis

Polixenes to Leontes

If you read what we had to say about the play’s two “Antagonists,” you probably saw this coming. Leontes and Polixenes are both kings who cause their families to suffer. And, although Leontes is usually the guy who gets the bad rap in the play, we can’t help but notice that, when Polixenes threatens to break up Florizel’s engagement to Perdita, he sounds a whole lot like his ex-childhood BFF, Leontes.