In the narrative, key characters exhibit a distinct lack of agency and voice, especially women. Polonius manipulates his daughter as a pawn to gain favor, showcasing her reduced status and powerlessness.
Male thoughts on ophelia:
To Hamlet, she is a potential wife
To Polonius and Laertes, she is a political pond piece and worth materialistic. Paints a picture of her as a baby (while Hamlet is expected to “man up”), lowering expectations of women.
Lets the audience paint a picture or identity over Ophelia
Tries to obey to father and brother (vulnerable, emotionally incapable of making own decisions, unknowledgeable of love and politics, unaware of the reality of life as a noble woman)
Basically anything and everything related to Ophelia
"Marry, I'll teach you: think yourself a baby/That you have ta'en his tenders for true pay/ Which are not sterling" (I.iii. 109-11) Polonius
She had nothing to live for without the men in her life who bestowed her sense of identity upon her
Gertrude is a woman that won’t have anymore children and temporarily forgotten the duty to the child she has
Gertrude does not save her, because she cannot save herself from the situation she is in and does not have the power to do so
Ophelia is the woman who should one day have taken over the role of the wife and mother from Gertrude as Hamlet should have become his father’s successor
Only nobly born women in the play of childbearing age, therefore the only available person for Hamlet to marry and have children with
Gertrude says this clearly at Ophelia’s obsequies (her son would marry Ophelia and life would therefore continue into the future, but by marrying Claudius and forgetting her love for her husband and son, she made a terrible miscalculation, albeit for very human reasons)
If Hamlet does not have children with Ophelia, everything Gertrude has lived for (a woman’s purpose in reproduction and continuing the bloodline) dies with Ophelia
No more value beyong choosing the new king once King Hamlet dies and repoducing hiers
Death of Ophelia contains her own death and the death of her son
Gertrude baring the news gives a pivotal moment in the development of the role
“Heavy with their drink” is foreshadowing her own death
Connection between the female characters
"There is a willow grows aslant a brook
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream.
There with fantastic garlands did she come
Of crowflowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do “dead men’s fingers” call them.
There, on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke,
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide,
And mermaid-like a while they bore her up,
Which time she chanted snatches of old lauds
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element. But long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death."
(IV.vi. 151-68) Gertrude
The are tossed around
Could not show her true, authentic self
Has no control over personal relationshipsDescribes her as if he is talking about an animal (reduces her to the level of an animal)
Demonstrating her powerlessness and her status as one of her father’s possessions he can use to gain power or possessions
No one else at court found this to be any bit concerning or weird: this is the norm
"At such a time I'll loose my daughter to him:/Be you and I behind an arras then: Mark the encounter: if he loves her not / And be not from his reaspn fall'n thereon" (II. ii. 170-4) Polonius
Poloius wanted Gertrude to accuses Hamlet of offending his father (Claudius)
"My lord, he's going to his mother's closet:/Behind the arras I'll convey myself./ To hear the process. I'll warrant shw'll tax him alone" (III.iii. 29-32) Polonius' line
Idk if this is a good part to include
No one listens to their thoughts
Intelligence is ignored
Ophelia calls out Laertes’ and society’s hypocrisy regarding the virginity of females versus males in very few lines
Men (Laertes) may tread “the primrose path of dalliance” while women (Ophelia) are resigned to the “steep and thorny way”
Very intelligent remark, but is dismissed by the male characters and the audiences who view her as a child incapable of thoughts
Removed and ignored from the “action” of the play
|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." (I.iii.48-52) Ophelia to Laertes.
Subtopic
Gertrude accurately pin-points reason for Hamlet’s madness
However, her opinion is not taken into consideration and brushed aside (like Ophelia’s)
It is physically distracted by male entering the scene (overshadow)
"I doubt it is no other but the main:
His father’s death and our o'erhasty marriage." (II.ii. 56-7)
Then other people enter the scene (Polonius, Voltemand, Cornelius)
At the end, they convince her and she says "It may be, very likely" (II.ii. 157) - Does this fall into the easily manipulated category?
Ophelia chooses plants and flowers that symbolise her doomed romance with Hamlet.
Columbine symbolic of ingratitude and forsaken love, calls the King and Queen adulterers
Fennel being symbolic of Hamlet’s shallow and false love, refers to the false flattery and deceit of the court
Hamlet does not appear in this scene. Instead Ophelia hands out her flowers to the court in front of the King and Queen. It is therefore more likely that Ophelia’s message, shrouded in her apparent madness, is aimed at the King and his court.
Rosemary is for remembrance. Ophelia's plea to the court to remember has a touch of melancholy about it. As Rosemary formed part of burial wreaths it serves as a forewarning to her tragic death.
Pansies are for thoughts, closely connected to memory, of keeping people within your thoughts.
Rue is a call for those around her to regret and repent their past evil deeds.
Daisies are for innocence. As I mentioned in my post on Daisies, Ophelia names Daisy but does not hand it out, suggesting that the court lacks innocence and purity.
Violets are for faithfulness and fidelity. As Ophelia has none to give to the Queen she exposes the Queen's infidelity.
Long Purple is the Common Purple Orchid; Orchis is from the Greek meaning testicle, named so because of the shape of the plant's two tubers, and mascula comes from the Latin masculus, meaning male or virile.
She's calling the people out, and voicing her thoughts, but she was only percieved as mad
"There’s fennel for you, and columbines.—There’s rue for you, and here’s some for me. We may call it “herb of grace” o' Sundays.—Oh, you must wear your rue with a difference.—There’s a daisy. I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died. They say he made a good end (sings) For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy." (IV.iv.188-94) Ophelia
