Rethinking Ophelia and the Virgin Mary

It is said that in the patriarchy of Shakespeare’s world, characters like Hamlet sort women into two categories: Virgin or whore. Ophelia and Gertrude can’t live up to an iconic model like the Virgin Mary. [1]

In this way, we may view the Virgin Mary in a class by herself, sinless “Mother of God” who conceived Jesus by the Holy Spirit, and not by any man, and therefore to view Ophelia and Gertrude as far lesser mortals. [2] I will focus this post on Ophelia.

I have come to believe, however, that it’s better to consider some of the many things Ophelia has in common with the Virgin Mary story rather than how Mary is in a class by herself.

The story claims that Joseph, after a dream, did the honorable thing and married her (Matt 1:18-25). So the story is not merely about virginity, but also about treating a pregnant woman with compassion.

If Hamlet had learned that he had made Ophelia pregnant, would he have acted in love to marry her? From his graveside declaration of his love (5.1.285-7), we might safely assume so.

Heavenly Parentage:
The gospels claim that Jesus had a heavenly “father,” and was "conceived by the Holy Spirit." Jesus affirms this after being lost from his parents, found later at the temple, saying he had to be about his “father’s business” (Luke 2:49).

Ophelia, even in her madness, may be glimpsing her own heavenly parentage when she says,

“It is the false steward that stole his master's daughter” (4.5.196-7).

It is said that this refers to a sub-plot in a Ben Jonson play of the time [3], where a girl is made to feel unworthy of a match above her social station, when in fact, she had been abducted by a steward, and her real father is of royal or aristocratic blood.

But the implication for Ophelia can also be about a heavenly father. It is easy to imagine that she feels her father Polonius was acting as a false steward, and that her true parentage is heavenly (as the religiously inclined might say for all of us). [4]

In this way, a gap opens up between Ophelia and her overprotective father and brother who made her feel she was unworthy of a match with the prince.

The Ascension:
Catholic tradition claims that at Mary’s death, she was “assumed” into heaven without having her body decay in a grave. Perhaps figuratively, this implies that she was already in heaven during her life because of how she lived, and that her social body, made up of how she influenced those around her, was already a glimpse of heaven on earth.  

The circumstances of Ophelia’s drowning and death are described by Gertrude as if Ophelia was happy, decorating a willow’s branches with flowers, and then, once she fell into the brook from a broken branch, she “chanted snatches of old lauds” or sacred songs (4.7.202), ready to face death without fear, as if in mystical ecstasy (4.7.190-208).

In these ways, Ophelia has much in common with the Virgin Mary.
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Postscript in response to a comment from a reader: (Is Ophelia pregnant, as portrayed in the spring 2023 Guthrie Theater production, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA?)
The idea that Ophelia might be pregnant is certainly a possibility, and an important one at that...
- And yet it's left ambiguous:
Hamlet implies that Polonius is a Jephthah, and so Ophelia is like a Jephthah's daughter who is to be sacrificed, and who mourns her virginity, the fact that she will never bear children...

- So when Ophelia sings a song of a lover who promised her to wed, does she merely *wish* she could have been queen and could have borne Hamlet's children?

- Same with her talk of herbs and flowers, some of which were known abortifacients - is that meant to literally imply that she *is* pregnant, / or / *was" but lost it via use of abortifacients?
 
- It's intriguing either way, but perhaps another of those times the ambiguity (the mystery) is of great importance, so we should be careful not to pluck the mystery, as Hamlet tells R&G...
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NOTES:
[1] All references to Hamlet are to the Folger Shakespeare Library online version: https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/hamlet/entire-play/

Polonius knows that at the Annunciation, portrayed in paintings and illustrations in popular prayer books, the Virgin Mary is holding a book of psalms, so he asks Ophelia to read a book:

…with devotion's visage

And pious action we do sugar o'er

The Devil himself. (3.1.53-55)

He wants her to appear to be “devotion’s image” when she acts as bait for Hamlet while Polonius and Claudius spy on them. He knows he is abusing the memory of something holy to disguise his more sinister intent. See these three previous blog posts:
Ophelia's Prayer Book & the Annunciation of Mary:
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2019/05/ophelias-prayer-book-annunciation-of.html
Reactions to R. Chris Hassel, Jr.'s "Painted Women: Annunciation Motifs in Hamlet":
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2019/11/painted-women-sex-purgatory-freud.html

Neglected Religious and Political Meanings of the Annunciation Allusion in Hamlet 3.1:
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2021/12/neglected-religious-and-political.html

See also “Marry” as an example of a “minced oath” based, in part, on the Virgin Mary:
https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/greatworks2016/?p=769

Inevitably, to Hamlet, his mother Gertrude is a whore for having had an affair with his uncle and married him so soon after his father’s death.

Ophelia seems at first interested in Hamlet [1.3.108-123, 3.1.106-108, 3.1.125-126], but after her too-suspicious, too-scheming father cuts off the relationship [1.3.136-144], it seems Hamlet may think she was only toying with him [3.1.154-162], or that she is more willing to act as bait for his father’s spying [3.1.141-144] than she is willing to love and commit to him. Her father acts like her pimp, expecting a formal proposal, through him as price [1.3.114-118], and not for the lovers to work out their own expectations and love. So Hamlet may view her as a flirt and whore who should better join a nunnery [3.1.131,140,149,151,162] to save her soul.


[2] While the Catholic church teaches as a matter of doctrine that Mary was a virgin when she conceived Jesus by the Holy Spirit, these stories appeared relatively late, in later gospels, whose objective may have been a kind of hyperbole and legend-making: The followers of Jesus found him and his teachings to be blessed, and in harmony with their understandings of God as loving, wise, and merciful. So what better way to honor his memory than a story that claims he was conceived not by a human father, but a heavenly Spirit?

We might also remember that even if sperm from a human male was involved when Mary conceived Jesus, it’s still possible to make the theological claim that the Holy Spirit was at work.

Some scholars have said the words of the creed, “conceived by the Holy Spirit” are a theological claim, not a historical fact. So if Mary became pregnant out of wedlock, either by Joseph, or as an ancient writer claimed, by a Roman Soldier.
See Jesus seminar on virginity of mary as theological, not historical
https://www.tampabay.com/archive/1994/11/05/scholars-doubt-chastity-of-virgin-mary/

See also many sources on the ancient claim of Celcus about father of Jesus as Roman soldier:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/virgin-mary-career-killer

And see also: What is lost and gained either way, whether Mary was a virgin or not:
https://religionnews.com/2017/11/28/if-mary-wasnt-a-virgin/

[3] See my 2019 blog post on this topic:
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-false-steward-that-stole-his.html

[4] We may also note: Ophelia obeys the biblical commandment to honor her father Polonius by obeying him in rejecting Hamlet, and later obeying him again to act as bait for spying with her book. So in that sense, she is "sinless" for not having violated one of the ten commandments, viewed as very import in Shakespeare's lifetime.

But she may feel torn between that commandment, and a duty to be compassionate toward Hamlet the beggar at her door, like the beggar Lazarus at the door of the rich man. She expresses this by comparing herself to the "baker's daughter" (4.5.47-48) in the folktale, who lacks compassion for the beggar at their door.

Obeying her father means rejecting Hamlet and acting without Christian compassion for him, but welcoming Hamlet would have made her risk disobeying (and dishonoring) her father, a sin either way.

This may help her come to the conclusion that perhaps her father was acting as a false steward.

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IMAGES:

Left: “Ophelia” by Arthur Hughes, c.1865, Toledo Museum. Public domain, via https://www.toledomuseum.org/about/news/art-minute-arthur-hughes-ophelia-%E2%80%9Cand-he-will-not-come-back-again%E2%80%9D

Center: Annunciation, or “Ecce Ancilla Domini!” by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, c. 1849. At Tate Britain. Public domain via https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dante_Gabriel_Rossetti_-_Ecce_Ancilla_Domini!_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

Right: “Ophelia,” c.1851-1853, by Arthur Hughes. Public domain via Manchester City Art Gallery, via https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Arthur_Hughes_-_Ophelia_(First_Version).JPG

 


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Disclaimer: If and when I quote or paraphrase bible passages or mention religion in many of my blog posts, I do not intend to promote any religion over another, nor am I attempting to promote religious belief in general; only to explore how the Bible and religion influenced Shakespeare, his plays, and his age.
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Thanks for reading!
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My current project is a book tentatively titled Hamlet’s Bible, about biblical allusions and plot echoes in Hamlet.

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