Matthew Kamm
Example Essay
Ophelia:Naughty not Nice
Shakespeare’sOpheliais a portrait of idealistic femininity. Above all else she represents purity and innocence, full goodness.Over the centuries, her drowning has been portrayed in prose, poetry, and art as a romantic, almost lovely tragedy, the culmination of mental breakdown and unrequited love.But perhaps this one-dimensional characterization is not what Shakespeare had in mind when he created her.She is conflicted in her mind, and possibly in her actions. It can not be assumed that her late night visits with Hamlet -- those to which her father put an end-- were totally innocent and chaste; and some scholars question the true nature of her relationship to Claudius.In her article, “Claiming the Body:The OpheliaMyth in the GDR”, Ruth J. Owen states, “While Shakespeare leaves ambiguous the extent to whichOphelia’s death is intentional, drowning is also the form of suicide associated historically with illegitimate pregnancy….”It is arguable thatOpheliawas sexually compromised; it is arguable that she finds herself pregnant.
While expectantOphelia’s are certainly not the norm, Maurice Hunt, research professor of English at Baylor University, asserts, “Certainly the question of whetherOpheliais pregnant with Hamlet’s child is not original.”He cites George Puttenham inThe Arte of English Poesie(1589) as terming the word pregnant “ …‘a certain imaginative capacity for metaphoric understanding’, precisely what Shakespeare stimulates in viewers and readers of Hamlet so that they construct a physically pregnantOpheliafrom a plethora of suggestive bits and pieces of dramatic evidence. …with the result that her personal tragedy is more pathetic than would otherwise be the case.”Such suggestive bits and pieces might include Act 2, scene 2:conceptionis a blessing …as yourdaughter may conceive, friend—look to’t” (2.2, 182); if the sunbreeds(2.2, 179); howpregnantsometimes his replies are (2.2, 1310); reason and sanity could not so prosperouslybedeliveredof. I will leave him and suddenly contrive the means ofmeeting between him and my daughter(2.2, 1310).More sexually blatant are the lyrics to the songsOpheliasings as she breaks under the weight of her miseries: Then up he rose and donn'd his clo'es/ And dupp'd the chamber door/ Let in themaid, that out amaid/Never departed more.(4.5,2912)Also: Young men will do't if they come to't /By Cock, they are to blame./ Quoth she, 'Before youtumbledme,/ You promis'd me to wed.' (4.5,2919)
Ophelia’s virginity was no small matter in a day where chastity was considered a significant portion of a woman’s worth.It was especially important among the upper-class and nobility where desirable women were political commodities to be bought and bargained with by men seeking favor, status, and political power.An unplanned pregnancy would certainly contribute to the timing and extent ofOphelia’s madness.Rejected by Hamlet and abandoned by her father in death,Opheliawould have no way of legitimizing her pregnancy; she would become an outcast with no one to take care of her, and no place to go – not even a nunnery in either understanding of the word.
In an article forThe Clyde Fitch Report, John Hudson, currently an Artist in Residence to the Theatre Department at Eastern Connecticut State University, writes about underlying allegorical meanings in Shakespeare plays.These include parodies of Christian doctrines.He cites Opheliaas being a type of Virgin Mary and finds a “blatant Annunciation parody”:Opheliais twice interrupted, once while reading, the other time while sewing, which were the two traditional ways the Virgin Mary was shown in Renaissance artbeing interrupted by the angel of the Annunciation. Hamlet warns thatOpheliamay conceive if exposed too much to the sun; he compares her to the way the carcass of a dead dog can generate maggots in the sun by a “God kissing carrion.” This revolting image was used by Christian theologianAlanus de Insulisas a way of explaining how Mary might have conceived Jesus by supernatural means. A less repulsive image of the Annunciation in Renaissance art was that Mary conceived Christ, while remaining a virgin, in the same way sunbeams pass through a glass window. In the play, Hamlet, as the son of Hyperion,represents Helios the sun god, and he bends the light of his eyes or sunbeams toOpheliawithout looking away, even while he walks out of the room. In Hamlet’s behavior, such as holding his head, there are parallels to the account in the Infancy Gospel of James of how Joseph behaved when he found out his wife was mysteriously pregnant (Hudson.)
Another possibility to explore is thatOpheliawas sexually abused and impregnated by Claudius.In, Opelia’s Nothing fromModern Language NotesVol. 64“It is the false steward that stole his master’s daughter,” Arthur Harris explores J. Max Patrick’s “erotic estimate of Ophelia”, and argues that audiences “are to suspect Claudius himself as the principle cause ofOphelia’s madness and death; specifically that at some point shortly before her madness there has been a liason between the two, that she has been sexually abused, and that he has been not only the sexual predator but also the one who ‘dispatched’Opheliato her grave.”Like Hunt, Harris cites the suggestive bits and pieces imbedded in the script and the “sexually suggestive language of her mad songs (e.g.,tricks, hems, beats, spurns), ” asserting that audiences are encouraged by them to “suspect misfortune.In addition, her statement, ‘It is the false steward that stole his master’s daughter’ (4.5.171-72) strongly implicates the King as the thief.”Harris argues, “Further proof appears in the ‘curious (and obvious) stress upon sexual imagery’ in Gertrude’s report of Ophelia’s drowning, the gravedigger’s exposition on the uncertainty of the death and cryptic ballad (which seems interestingly altered from the original to raise suspicions), and the priest’s oddly timedstress onOphelia’s chastity.”He does admit that “Perhaps the ‘formation of suspicions – without sufficient evidence as proof – is exactly what Shakespeare intends to elicit’.But, while Horatio is responsible for telling Hamlet’s story, audiences are responsible for ‘hearing’Ophelia’s story.”
Ronald Bradford Jenkins takes a novel approach to finding Claudius asOphelia’s baby’s daddy by setting himself up as an attorney representingOphelia’s family, presenting to his reader-jurors evidence that King Claudius seduced, impregnated and murderedOphelia.Claudius is shown to be capable of seduction, murder and intrigue, and “althoughOpheliais praised by several respected ‘character witnesses’ (e.g., Campbell, Vischer, Coleridge, Johnson, Hazlitt, Jameson) (208), evidence emerges thatOpheliawas not a chaste virgin. For example, Polonius and Laertes feel the need to warnOpheliaabout protecting her chastity, and, in response to their cautions, ‘Her lack of indignation is puzzling’. According to the prosecution,Ophelia’s lack of chastity leads to her impregnation by Claudius. Hamlet and Gertrude learn about the scandalous pregnancy, and both shun the young girl. ButOpheliaand her unborn child pose threats to the throne. Adopting the disguise of madness (like Hamlet)…” Jenkins brings upOphelia’ssing-song ramblings and flowers and says she uses them to accuse her seducer. “Claudius responds by ordering two men to follow her, and then she suddenly drowns, “accidentally.”He further points out that the heavy layers of clothing that dragOpheliaunderwater are inappropriate for warm-weather wear, but essential to the concealment of her condition.He also claims that it is the church’s awareness of the unwed mother-to-be (or not to be!) that cause the conflict over her grave-side service.
Hudson later brings up the scene in whichOpheliaappears with all her flowers. He says, “a careful analysis of the article “Ophelia’s Herbal” shows that almost all these flowers are emmenagogues, meaning they cause abortion and menstruation. Why? Presumably that is what she has been using them for.”Usually, when this scene is considered, all types of symbolic meanings, other than those specified in the play, are attributed to the flowers, and there is speculation (in the absence of stage directions) as to whom each flower is presented and why. However, a broad “language of flowers”, or floriography, was a creation of the later Victorian era when people enjoyed sending coded messages in bouquets and other floral arrangements. Even so, it is difficult to find commentaries that agree precisely as to the symbolic meaning of each of the flowers.Of the flowers, Newman states, “Previously perceived as bearers of complex meanings, her (Ophelia’s) references to these herbs and flowers may be better read as a shocking enumeration of well-known abortifacients and emmenagogues…they were widely known and subjects of commonly held belief to author and audience alike.” Such research has been repeated by other scholars, including Erik Rosencrantz Bruun in his article “As Your Daughter may Conceive”,a contribution toPostmodern Essays on Love, Sex and Marriage in Shakespeareby Bhim S. Dahiya (1993), and Hunt in “ImpregnatingOphelia.”Hunt goes on to say that he knows of at least one production, directed by Darko Tresnjak at the Old Globe in San Diego in 2007, that showedOpheliabeing visibly pregnant.
The whole notion ofOpheliabeing pregnant begs the question: If finding pregnancy in the play’s text is a legitimate reading, why is it not a more widely embraced production choice?The answer is found in the historical and cultural attitudes toward women, sexuality, and theater itself through the ages.In an age when women were not even allowed to play female characters on stage, Shakespeare could not have an obviously pregnantOpheliaand still hope to have his play produced.“As in the days of the early Roman empire, a class of informers rose into being, called, in Elizabethan parlance, “moralisers” or “state decipherers,” whose business it was to discover and denounce passages, situations and even single words which seemed to betray a dangerous meaning. The spirit of Jacobean government did not fail to carry further a system congenial to its mode of working. Such, in this age, were a few among the troubles of authors—troubles in which dramatists had more than their share.” (The Cambridge History of English).In her article “Opheliaand Femininity in the Eighteenth Century:Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding Minds” Mary Floyd-Wilson, Ph. D. of English and Comparative Literature from University of North Carolina, explores how “recent commentary has recognized that the cultural construct of Shakespeare’sOpheliahas overridden her presence (or absence) in the text or subtext ofHamlet…‘Augustans were discomforted by the erotic and discordant elements inOphelia’s role’…We need to reconsider the Romantics’ embrace ofOphelia’s ‘sexuality and emotionality’ (Showalter).While Augustan difficulties withOpheliamay have initiated ‘censorship of the part’ (Showalter), a censored script remained standard form until the 1940’s.The repercussions of the eighteenth-century expurgation ofHamletextend far beyond that period, and in varying ways, affect our cultural conception of the ‘fairOphelia.’”
Perhaps present day attitudes toward women, sex, and psychoses are now allowing commentators, critics and theorists to seeHamletwith fresh eyes.Perhaps we will be seeing more productions withOphelia’s that are showing, such as Tresnjak’s 2007 production, or John Hudson’s upcoming experimental production with Dark Lady Players in New York, whereOpheliawill be equipped with puppet maggots (Hudson).There are still secrets aboutOpheliato be uncovered in theHamlettext.It is pregnant with possibilities.
Works Cited
Conjectures in Ill-breeding Minds""Women's Studies21 (1992): 397-409. Web.
Floyd-Wilson, Mary. "Opheliaand Femininity in the Eighteenth Century: "Dangerous Hudson, John. "Heretic's Foundation V: Shakespeare's Spoofs of the Virgin Mary." Web.
Maurice, Hunt. "ImpregnatingOphelia."Neophilologus89.4 (2005): 641. Web.
Modern Language Notes, Vol. 64, No. 5. (May, 1949), pp. 322-323.
Newman, Lucile F. "Ophelia's Herbal."Economic Botany33.2 (1980): 227-32. Print.
Owen, Ruth J. "Claiming the Body: TheOpheliaMyth in the GDR."Germanic Review82.3 (2007): 253. Web.
Showalter, Elaine. New York: Pantheon, 1985. Print.
The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes(1907–21)VolumeV. Print.
The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes(1907–21).
Volume V.The Drama to 1642, Part One