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Replies | Post Reply | Shakespeare Queries From Genuinely Interested Students 4.2.97: Top | Help
Though you certainly had REASON to want to die, I think you drowned by accident. There doesn't seem to be any "method" to your "madness" so I doubt that you wanted to kill yourself to spite Hamlet or to highlight his. I agree that you probably felt in some way responsible for betraying him. You also had a number of other things going on that could have led you to go loo-loo.The 1990's feminist in me would REALLY like to think that Ophelia was in some way taking back some control over her life (of which she and other young ladies of the time clearly had little or none) by choosing to end it. However, I think that the only choice the text supports is that she was singing by the river and fell in, then seeming not to notice, was dragged under by the weight of her clothes.
I did once argue for her sanity in a paper using her choice of herbs and flowers in her madness speech as evidence that she knew exactly what she was doing. It doesn't quite follow though that she is sane because she knew what they meant and used them properly.
I'm also one of those people who thinks that Ophelia and Hamlet had a sexual relationship, and that Ophelia may have been pregnant on top of everything else, but THAT's a whole different query.
Posted by Lillith on April 19, 1997 at 10:03:45
In Reply to "The answer from the expert" posted by Ophelia on April 19, 1997 at 08:56:29
Replies | Post Reply | Shakespeare Queries From Genuinely Interested Students 4.2.97: Top | Help