Part 22: Ophelia's Opening Questions

Shakespeare occasionally reminds us of the Elizabethan slang, that men have a “thing” and women a “nothing.” Ophelia’s name begins with an “O,” an emptiness at least potentially waiting to be filled.

Questions are analogous to this. Nature abhors a vacuum; many questions seek answers, or are at least open to mysteries, first attempts to name their boundaries.

Hamlet is famous for asking, To be or not? But he also resists certain questions, telling Rosencrantz and Guildenstern not to assume they can pluck the heart of his mystery.

Bridget Gellert Lyons (1977) and Katharine Goodland (2006) are among those who notice in Ophelia early in the nunnery scene an echo of the ubiquitous images of Mary reading a book, perhaps of psalms, when visited by the angel at the Annunciation. In Luke’s gospel, Mary’s first sentence to the angel is a question: ““How shall this be?” But Mary is open to the angel’s mystery: “be it unto me according to thy word,” she says, or as Hamlet would put it, “Let be.”

Strikingly, Ophelia uses questions with Laertes, Hamlet, and Gertrude in a variety of interesting ways. As with Mary in Luke's gospel beginning with a question, Ophelia also begins with questions. This blog post focuses especially on three of these.
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In three of Ophelia’s scenes, she begins with a question.

TO LAERTES:
In 1.3, when Laertes is about to depart, he would like to have letters from Ophelia while he is in France, so he tells her,
“Do not sleep, but let me hear from you.”

She responds, “Do you doubt that?” (1.3.5).

This turns the tables on him, implying agency, rebalancing power:
He lacks faith in his sister;
he should know her better than to have to ask.
(But she evades his request by responding with a question!)

Laertes tells Ophelia that she should consider Hamlet’s affection a brief and passing thing, not a lasting commitment.
She replies with a question: “No more but so?” (1.3.12)
He tells her to guard her chastity;
she replies: she will remember his advice, but he should not leave for France preaching chastity, and then turn hypocrite while there.

TO HAMLET:
In 3.1, Ophelia asks Hamlet,
“Good my lord, / How does your Honor for this many a day?” (3.1.99-100)

Hamlet had seen and spoken with the ghost of his father, learned of his mother’s infidelity and his father’s murder by Claudius, and had, without speaking, visited her closet, so her question covers a broad sweep of events, and is a polite opening to a conversation in which, while Polonius and Clauius spy on them, she will return his letters, and he will tell her to get to a nunnery.

TO GERTRUDE:
In 4.5, men report to Gertrude that Ophelia is acting strange and distracted after her father’s death. The Queen is reluctant to face Ophelia, but they convince her that it may be less dangerous for Ophelia to speak to her than to others, given the strange things she is saying.

When Gertrude tells them to let Ophelia in, Ophelia asks,
“Where is the beauteous Majesty of Denmark?” (4.5.26)

We might be tempted to assume that Ophelia is asking where Gertrude is. But if Ophelia is facing and speaking to Gertrude, why ask where the beautiful Queen of Denmark is?

In her apparent madness, with Hamlet having made to her “almost all the holy vows of heaven” (1.3.123), she may be speaking of herself, as the future queen of Denmark. Gertrude does not respond, “Here I am,” but instead, responds with a question: “How now, Ophelia?” (4.5.27).

In fact, one way to read Ophelia’s “mad” scene of 4.5 is that Ophelia acts as if she is queen, and with her statements and songs, tells people what to do, and how to interpret her, and interrupts them to correct them as a monarch might her subjects. It would seem to be madness, for her to do this with the Queen and King, but they may not know until late in the scene that Hamlet promised to marry her.

In her madness, the questioning Ophelia forces the audience to consider:
Who is in charge here?
Who are the legitimate king and queen, when a king has been secretly killed by his brother, and when the heir apparent promised to marry Ophelia?
 

NOTES: All references to Hamlet are to the Folger Shakespeare Library online version: https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/hamlet/entire-play/

[1] Bridget Gellert Lyons, "The Iconography of Ophelia," page 61: "The woman with a book was reminiscent of countless representations of the Virgin, who was most commonly shown reading when the Angel of the Annunciation came to visit her." ELH, Spring, 1977, Vol. 44, No. 1, pp. 60-74 https://www.jstor.org/stable/2872526
Katharine Goodland, Female Mourning and Tragedy in Medieval and Renaissance English Drama, Routledge, 2006:
https://www.routledge.com/Female-Mourning-and-Tragedy-in-Medieval-and-Renaissance-English-Drama-From/Goodland/p/book/9781138275638
See also Ruben Espinoza, Masculinity and Marian Efficacy in Shakespeare's England. Routledge, 2011. https://www.routledge.com/Masculinity-and-Marian-Efficacy-in-Shakespeares-England/Espinosa/p/book/9781138268111

IMAGES:
Cropped, image clips from facsimile of the Second Quarto, Hamlet, via Internet Shakespeare, the University of Victoria, and the British Library. Fair use. https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/facsimile/book/BL_Q2_Ham/73/index.html%3Fzoom=750.html

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INDEX OF OPHELIA POSTS:
My 2023 series on Ophelia, and earlier Ophelia posts:

https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2023/10/index-of-ophelia-posts-2023-series-and.html
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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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