Part 23: Queen Ophelia and the male gatekeepers defining her madness
When we first see her brother Laertes in 1.2, he is reluctant to speak in an audience with the king who asks him repeatedly about his requested permission to return to France and scolds him for his shyness:
CLAUDIUS: What is ’t, Laertes?
You cannot speak of reason to the Dane
And lose your voice. What wouldst thou beg, Laertes,
That shall not be my offer, not thy asking? [...]
What wouldst thou have, Laertes? (1.2.43-51)
Claudius is a bully, and also bullies Hamlet later in the same scene about his mourning of his father.
(1.2.96-109)
But Ophelia in her “mad” scene shows no shyness, and asks the first question:
OPHELIA: Where is the beauteous Majesty of Denmark? (4.5.26)
And if Hamlet had been allowed by Polonius to keep his vows to her, and to ascend the throne instead of the murderous usurper Claudius, Ophelia would have been queen, the “beauteous majesty of Denmark.”
She dominates the scene, interrupting the queen twice with “Pray you, mark,” or in other words, Please, pay attention, listen up! (4.5.33,40). She interrupts the king with song to disagree with him (4.5.50-52), and later, twice more interrupts him (4.5.62, 72).
Ophelia acts in 4.5 like a queen, like a parody of Claudius in Act 1, scene 2, when he
announces his recent marriage with Gertrude to the gathered court,
thanks the court for their advice,
dispenses tasks to messengers to Norway, and favors to Polonius and Laertes:
Ophelia’s actions in 4.5 correspond with all of these of Claudius in 1.2, but improve on them. Ophelia shows the court how it could, and should, be done.
But instead of announcing a marriage like Claudius, Ophelia sings a bawdy Valentine’s song about a lover who promised to marry her but then did not keep his word.
She freely voices her feelings of mourning about her father, and her feelings of abandonment by Hamlet, unlike Claudius and Gertrude who had tried to suppress Hamlet’s mourning for the sake of their wedding celebration.
This is not a soft, weak, blank- or wide-eyed wisp of a woman who needs her brother to hold her up. In the presence of the Queen and King in 4.5, she is more in command than her brother was in his first scene, and more so than even her monarchs, which may have seemed scandalous to original viewers, for her to address them that way.
The only people who say she is mad are the men in the scene, not Gertrude. They cannot comprehend her, acting with the agency of a monarch, nor can they grasp that her performance critiques that of Claudius, so they can only conclude that she is afflicted by madness.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Postscript: Introduction to reposting:
In Ophelia’s “mad” scene (4.5), she sings a Valentine song about a lover who promises to wed a maid and then “tumbled” her, and then in the morning, says he would have kept his promise if she had not come to his bed.
In a patriarchal reading, some might say: Her father Polonius was right. They won’t buy the cow (marry the girl) if they can get the milk for free (if they can bed the girl without marriage). She should have "charged a higher rate" than a “command to parley.”
But this kind of reading overlooks the fact that Hamlet is a man who is very concerned that people should keep their vows. In his view,
his mother should keep her marriage vows by mourning longer;
she should keep her Christian vows by not marrying brother-in-law;
Hamlet is anxious about keeping his vows to the ghost, to avenge;
the sentinels and Horatio must keep their vows of secrecy about the ghost; etc.
The more patriarchal reading also neglects the fact that when Hamlet made to Ophelia “almost all the holy vows of heaven” it may well have been considered the equivalent of a “handfast” marriage that Laertes and Polonius should respect, and that Gertrude and Claudius should recognize.
If Ophelia acts like a queen in her “mad” scene it may be because she realizes Claudius is not a legitimate king, and Hamlet should have been king - making Ophelia his queen, and the “beauteous majesty of Denmark.”
Ophelia is not disposable, although a certain patriarchal view might consider her as such. Only the men in the scene say she is mad, not Gertrude.
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The two images in the collage are both by men, which may in part explain why Ophelia is portrayed as crazed and limp (left, Benjamin West, 1792) or soft (circa 1880, by William Gorman Wills).
But notice in an alternative interpretation by a female artist (1890, Henrietta Rae (1859–1928), portraying the same scene. Ophelia here dominates, with more agency than either of the monarchs, perhaps a more accurate reading of the text:
IMAGE:
Ophelia, 1890, Henrietta Rae (1859–1928), public domain via
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Henrietta_Rae_-_Ophelia_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg
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NOTES: All references to Hamlet are to the Folger Shakespeare Library online version: https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/hamlet/entire-play/
IMAGES:
Left: Ophelia and Laertes, 1792, Benjamin West (1738–1820), Cincinnati Art Museum. Public domain via
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ophelia_and_Laertes,_by_Benjamin_West,_1792,_oil_on_canvas_-_Cincinnati_Art_Museum_-_DSC04595.JPG
Right: "Ophelia and Laertes," circa 1880, by William Gorman Wills. Private collection. Public domain via
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:William_Gorman_Wills-Ophelia_and_Laertes.jpg
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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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Well researched.
ReplyDeleteThank you!
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