Usually, we think of Sicily and Bohemia as depicting opposition. Wintry Sicily is dominated by the royal court, where corruption, distrust, injustice, and madness brew. Outside of Sicily's court, we find the prison where Hermione and her ladies-in-waiting are sent. Summery Bohemia, in contrast, is depicting as open, loving, pastoral community.

However, the two locations share similarities. While there is little physical description, both countries are on the sea in this play, although in reality, Bohemia is landlocked. Both are monarchies, and both are patriarchies where women have little power. Further, while in Sicily, darkness takes over in the form of Leontes's mad distrust of his wife and former best friend, some in the Sicilian court retain their goodness. Conversely, while an open and kind society prevails in Bohemia, threats of destruction from both nature and Polixenes hover. These gray areas complicate a simplistic reading of the settings as diametrically opposed: one evil, one good.

For example, evil has not completely engulfed Sicily. When Leontes insists beyond all reason that Polixenes and Hermione are having an affair, he demands that Camillo poison Polixenes. Camillo, a good man, instead defies his king and escapes with Polixenes.

On the other hand, though a happy, pastoral setting, Bohemia is shadowed with threats. Famously, Antigonus is separated from the infant Perdita when he is "pursued by a bear," showing the danger lurking in a natural setting. Further, when Polixenes discovers that his son, Florizel, is about to marry who Polixenes thinks is a lower-class peasant girl, Perdita, he responds with a fury worthy of the mad Leontes, threatening Perdita and her foster father with torture and death.

And finally, back in Sicily at the end, Hermione's rebirth transforms the land into happiness. Shakespeare is telling us through A Winter's Tale that any place can be good or evil, heaven or hell, and that much of this depends on the mindset of those with power.