- "I tried to argue that Ophelia resonated because Shakespeare had made an extraordinary discovery in writing her, though I had trouble articulating the nature of that discovery. I didn’t want to admit that it could be something as simple as recognizing that emotionally unstable teenage girls are human beings. … When Ophelia appears onstage in Act IV, scene V, singing little songs and handing out imaginary flowers, she temporarily upsets the entire power dynamic of the Elsinore court. When I picture that scene, I always imagine Gertrude, Claudius, Laertes, and Horatio sharing a stunned look, all of them thinking the same thing: 'We fucked up. We fucked up bad.' It might be the only moment of group self-awareness in the whole play. Not even the grossest old Victorian dinosaur of a critic tries to pretend that Ophelia is making a big deal out of nothing. Her madness and death is plainly the direct result of the alternating tyranny and neglect of the men in her life. She’s proof that adolescent girls don’t just go out of their minds for the fun of it. They’re driven there by people in their lives who should have known better."
(via shakespeareismyjam)
Harrison's article doesn't even contradict my own reading of Ophelia as an overly obedient child made helpless by her restrictive upbringing. I'd be cool if it did--as with so many things in Hamlet, our reading of Ophelia must go: "Here is the evidence. Here's the way I've chosen to put it together. But really, who knows?"
But it doesn't. Harrison is agreeing with the helpless model of Ophelia, more or less. Do you see her tone, though? See the very contemporary issues she's addressing--mental illness, teenage girls, inequality in conversation, pretending things are okay? I'm ashamed of my own flippant tone in considering Ophelia.
L.T. and C.W., this sounds so much like your own reading of Ophelia.
Peace,
Mrs. Swan