Friday, December 26, 2008
And flowers were around her body.
I thought of the first topic some days ago. I have read Hamlet twice (once in high school then again in college) and I have yet to determine whether I think Ophelia's death was suicidal or accidental. I believe there's good evidence on both sides and reasons to believe either. What are your thoughts?
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WARNING:
ReplyDeleteShakespeare is one of the things I am at LEAST as knowledgeable about as philosophy/Objectivism and just as passionate/excited about. This WILL be long... Sorry :\
I have always been partial to the theory that Hamlet got Ophelia pregnant under the intention of marrying her before he went crazy and when he spurns her she suicides rather than letting the world know she gave it up and lost her honor. It was commonly accepted in Elizabethan times that a marriage could be consummated once betrothed but before the ceremony.
I wrote a long paper on it in a Shakespeare class a few years back – the possibilities of aborted/dead fetuses in both Ophelia and Gertrude to heighten the tragedy. It increases the count of the dead and further illustrates that in poisoning the root of primogeniture Claudius killed the entire royal family tree. Basically viewing the play as commentary on succession and primogeniture – Macbeth also has the same themes as do other lesser known Shakespeare. I also got into the political theory of killing the next heir once you know you have your own -- otherwise why kill Hamlet? There's also Claudius’ INTENSE care for the slightest comforts of Gertrude (like a first time expectant father), a motive for murder of Hamlet Sr, and the question of whose baby Gertrude carried.
It took a bit of research, but it was a fun paper to write. The main points related to Ophelia as a suicide start with the songs Ophelia sings in her madness. These deal with being betrayed in love in a very physical literal sense. There’s no other way, particularly in Shakespeare to explain the puns on the maid never departing again, the cock and the more literal tumbling.
“To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.
Then up he rose, and donn'd his clothes,
And dupp'd the chamber-door;
Let in the maid, that out a maid
Never departed more.” (IV.5.48-55)
“Young men will do't, if they come to't;
By cock, they are to blame.
Quoth she, before you tumbled me,
You promised me to wed.
So would I ha' done, by yonder sun,
An thou hadst not come to my bed.” (IV.5.60-66)
When Ophelia returns, later in the scene, she’s passing out herbs/flowers and says to Gertrude:
“there's rue for you, and here's some for me;
we may call it herb of grace o'Sundays;
You must wear your rue with a difference” (IV.5.181-83)
Rue was actually a poison in high doses and used as an abortion contraceptive measure in low doses. You can look it up if you’d like, or just believe me.
Later, when Ophelia is dead, there is the only description – which again comes from Gertrude:
“Her clothes spread wide;
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:
Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;
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,
Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.” (IV.7.175-83)
Basically, from Gertrude’s tale, we know that she watched as Ophelia tried to hang flowers on a weeping willow and then watched her drown as her skirts got too heavy full of water. Ophelia died singing, one would guess singing the same songs as before, i.e. of losing virginity to a love forsaken. Now, as to WHO killed Ophelia…The choices are Ophelia herself, or Gertrude. In the first, it could be heartbreak, in the second it could be murder. Motive? The rue for the unborn baby earlier – knowledge of a child with Claudius before he could have by rights got her pregnant. It’s a stretch, but plausible. And thus the undue haste of the wedding without sufficient mourning. No matter who was responsible for her being in the pool, in Gertrude’s story, Ophelia makes no effort to stop drowning and Gertrude makes no attempt to save her or call for help til it’s too late. Thus, Ophelia suicides (or is murdered) no matter how she got there and Gertrude is accessory to homicide for witnessing and doing nothing to save her.
I warned you -- love Shakespeare. Hamlet's a goody!
Haha. No problem. I like it. In my college Shakespeare course, someone brought up the possiblilty of Hermione actually having an affair with Bohema's king. Thus, making the happy couple at the end of "The Winter's Tale" brother and sister. He even claimed before relating his thoughts that it was a stretch.
ReplyDeleteI'll believe you on the rue. I have no reason to question your intelligence.
"Ophelia makes no effort to stop drowning and Gertrude makes no attempt to save her or call for help til it’s too late. Thus, Ophelia suicides (or is murdered) no matter how she got there and Gertrude is accessory to homicide for witnessing and doing nothing to save her."
Good point.
But about Hamlet, I was under the impression that he only pretended to be crazy. That he really was quite sane, and it was all an act. So that as everyone was worrying about his mental state, he could put his plans into motion to poison Claudius. The insanity was a distraction.