Essay: Ophelia: Strong Femininity from Shakespeare to Modernity

The name Ophelia is derived from the Greek ophelos, meaning help. In popular culture, calling someone an Ophelia means to call them infantile and submissive, a byword for troubled teens. Ophelia, of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Lumineers song fame, is written as all of these characteristics and definitely would like some ophelos. However, though she reads as a passive character, modern culture has allowed for Ophelia to become a symbol of strength in the face of patriarchal control. The interpretation of her character is ever-evolving, along with the audience’s perception of her. Shakespeare wrote her as the archetypal femme fragile, but Ophelia’s complicated character shines through and has morphed in response to society’s changes, still remaining relevant and important to examine.
SHAKESPEARE’S OPHELIA
Shakespeare’s Ophelia, as she was understood at the time of her stage debut, was an ingénue of sweet innocence and guilelessness. Looking at Ophelia purely through the lense of dialogue, readers can see that she does not have many strong lines or stances; she is a copy of her father’s beliefs. Shakespeare has written out what society now calls the Ophelia Syndrome, condensed into the two phrases: “I do not know, my lord, what I should think,” and “I’ll teach you. Think yourself a baby” (1.3.113-114). The literary form of this phenomenon is found in the character of the femme fragile, the definition of which Ophelia fits perfectly. The femme fragile is a woman whose femininity is anchored on her delicacy. The femme fragile is an “innocent child-woman … [with] plaintive trepidation,” who relies on the men around her (Wieber). She acts as an avenue for a male power trip and is usually weak and victimized.
Her interactions in the text are fraught with acquiescence from the start. Her first scene starts with a lecture from her brother and a reproach from her father, both warnings to stay away from Hamlet. Her lines of response offer no opposition and show her blind faith in her patriarch. Ophelia simply says, “I shall obey, my lord,” and that she will “the effect of this good lesson keep” (1.3.145, 49). She is completely accepting of her brother and father’s control over her. Though she may truly love Hamlet, she withdraws from him on her father’s command. Her father views her as a baby to be coddled and kept innocent, her brother sees her solely as a prize that is sought after, and both see her as a treasure to be protected. The audience further sees the evidence of Ophelia’s weak and easily-manipulated constitution in Act 3, where she unquestioningly goes along with her father’s plot to spy on and entrap Hamlet. She is used as a pawn by everyone around her, even Hamlet. Though she goes along with the plans, Ophelia is most definitely portrayed as a victim, subjected to humiliation by her authoritative father and distrustful lover. Ophelia’s passivity and romanticized victimization continues until her death, as even her death is passive. Her “garments… pull her down to her muddy” death, seemingly through no fault of her own (4.7.206-208). Ophelia’s reliance on men, blind following, and passive compliance are, according to Shakespeare’s audience, a result of her inherent delicacy as a woman, which cements her place as the femme fragile.
Though, Ophelia taken dialogically seems to be just a helpless girl and collateral damage, when her actions are looked at in context, Shakespeare’s Ophelia is more nuanced than previously thought. The first thing to examine is Ophelia’s complete and utter lack of agency. Interestingly, most women in Shakespeare are written as strong characters with virtuous convictions, but the men write them off as headstrong or another negative connotation. However, Ophelia is the quintessential good girl, yet the men still look to control her and interfere in her life. Teker quips that the Ophelia herself “is a play within a play, or a player trying to respond to several imperious directors at once,” which accurately depicts the type of personal confliction she feels. Ophelia is isolated, drowned in a cast of men, without a support system, and has no choice to act in any other way, but in obedience, for fear of her male family’s wrath. Her affair with Hamlet is really the only she does that was wholly her choice and not out of obligation to her father, but even that is taken from her.
Her lack of agency is horrid enough, but she is stripped of her human dignity as well, as she is also constantly objectified and defined by her sexuality by the men in her life. Her own brother’s graphic allusion in Act 1, Scene 3, which likens intercourse to a worm invading an immature flower (43-44), turns Ophelia into an erotic object, while still insisting on her chastity. She is sexualized even in death, with her “clothes spread wide” (4.7.200). Ophelia’s objectification and sexualization serves only to limit her choices of action even further. Her lover Hamlet joins in subjugating her, turning their relationship on her and using it to threaten her. Hamlet’s rebuke to her spying ends with him brutally insulting her, revoking his love for her, and his ordering her to a brothel. Her love affair with him could eventually ruin her and stain her virtue, but she has no recourse, as she would have to admit her loss of virtue. Ophelia is thoroughly and infinitely trapped. Her suicide is really her action of taking back autonomy rather her succumbing to erotomania. She asserts her control over her life in the most emphatic way- by ending it.
As society morphed from the first Elizabeth on the English throne to the second, the audience’s view of Ophelia morphed with it. In Augustan times, objections of indecency led to censorship of Ophelia’s lines and she was represented more modestly and with a more dignified version of insanity. In the 19th century, the Pre-Raphaelites got hold of her and she became a sumptuous, aesthetically-pleasing object, while the Victorians romanticized her hysteria to an even greater degree, making her a “psychological study in sexual intimidation” (Showalter). In all of these interpretations, including Shakespeare’s, “Ophelia’s madness is presented as the outcome of her melancholy, hysteria, and erotomania… , the typical biological and emotional weaknesses of the female sex,” (Teker). Modern feminist viewpoints have prompted readers to turn about this objectification through by her romanticized madness and empower Ophelia through her insanity. A modern audience relates to her helplessness and marginalization and understands that her being a woman does not mean that she has a feminine disposition to madness. Ophelia goes mad because she “understands her lack of options” in this world (Rooks). Her insanity is resistance against the stifling norms which have ruined her. Going mad is a world where she has no control is the most freeing and rebellious thing she can do. She is not in control of her actions, but neither is anyone else.
Modern times and viewpoints have changed how the audience looks at her character arc and interpretation. Although the prevailing view of Ophelia is one of perfect maidenhood, there are factions of academics who cite the interaction between Hamlet and Ophelia in Act 3, Scene 1 as justification for her scheming her way into Hamlet’s bed and sleeping her way to the top. Interestingly, most audiences find her unsavoury no matter which radical version of femininity Ophelia embodies: femme fragile or femme fatale. Her meek demeanor and complete deference to her father do not engender her to the audience, and a harlot-Ophelia is vilified. Although Ophelia gains more agency as a purposeful sexual being, it comes back to condemn her anyway and, with this interpretation, goes mad as punishment (Showalter). Modern revisions mix the two extremes of her interpretation and paint her as the whole, complicated character she is. The characterization of Ophelia as solely a femme fragile or a femme fatale takes away from her true character and prevents the audience from fully understanding her motivations.
It is important to note that the audience does not know a lot about Ophelia outside the action of the play and sees precious little of her inner thoughts while she is sane, a byproduct of her relegation to secondary importance. Hamlet has a story and a complete plotline that does not include Ophelia, but Ophelia has no story without Hamlet. However, Showalter proposes that Ophelia’s true narrative is not her life story, but rather the “history of her representation”. Instead of Ophelia existing only in relation to Hamlet’s desire, Ophelia becomes a commentary on the oppressive patriarchy and an important character to watch. In fact, the few sane lines she has in which she speaks her mind are ones of social analysis, instanced when she calls out Laertes for his hypocritical guidance by saying “Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, / Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven, / Whiles, like a puffed and reckless libertine, / Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads/ And recks not his own rede” (1.3.51-55). Looking at how the audience’s views and interpretations of Ophelia have developed, a contemporary viewer can see how Ophelia’s character has become more important and liberated. Though dialogically, Ophelia may not be the most central character, her power, pathos, and relevance come from what she is unable to say and how the audience understands her.
CONCLUSION
Shakespeare’s character, originally written as the female mirror of Hamlet’s descent into madness, has risen above to become one of the most popular subjects in art and media. The continued remembrance of a character in a subplot is a testament to the adaptation and evolution of literature. Ophelia’s character and interpretation has been shaped by the changing tides of social norms, but the result stays the same. Ophelia dies as a result of her inability to break from the patriarchal control that has her life in a vise. Though Ophelia is still the archetype Shakespeare wrote her as (victimized, dependent, and artless), the audience understanding of her has progressed to so much more than what Shakespeare started off with, and she will continue to evolve as time goes on.