Part 24: Ophelia, Gertrude, and Shifting Narratives of Marital Betrayal via Cristina León Alfar

Instead of reading Ophelia’s love for Hamlet as unwise, too “free” [1], and viewing Gertrude as adulterous [2], it is possible to read both characters very differently.

We might be nudged in this direction by certain feminist readings, one being a book by Cristina León Alfar called Women and Shakespeare's Cuckoldry Plays: Shifting Narratives of Marital Betrayal [3]. Although the focus of her book is not Hamlet, many of her insights apply.

Alfar’s focus involves six plays in which male claims of female adultery play a central role. These include Merry Wives of Windsor, Much Ado About Nothing, Othello, and The Winter’s Tale.

Alfar carefully tracks a trend: Men (at times misled by men like Iago and Don John) make false claims of women’s infidelity, claiming wives or fiances have made them “cuckolds.” But these claims are fictions or lies based on male anxiety. Women, often with help of female allies, can shift these narratives, accusing the men of slander for their false claims.

In this way, the women identify the problem as not one of female whorishness, but of male distrustfulness and infidelity.

How might this apply to Hamlet?

For centuries, viewers and readers of Hamlet may have been inclined to side with the patriarchal point of view of Laertes and Polonius, warning Ophelia not to trust Hamlet or his vows, not to become sexually “prodigal” [4].

But in her allegedly “mad” scene, Ophelia turns this around, singing a Valentine song: [5]
Before he “tumbled” a maid, the man in the song promised her “to wed.” Yet in the morning he says he would have kept that promise if she had not come to his bed: The promised marriage was only a ploy.

Ophelia had already revealed to her father that Hamlet had made to her “almost all the holy vows of heaven” [6], but until she sings her Valentine song, Gertrude and Claudius may not have known of Hamlet’s vows, which may be the equivalent of a “handfast” marriage.[7]

The problem is not whether Ophelia is too loose, a painted woman [8], a whore [9], but whether Hamlet would be faithful, keep his vows, and be allowed to do so by Polonius and others.

In a framework like Alfar’s, Gertrude seems a female ally of Ophelia.[10]

Although the play notes that the ghost may be untrustworthy, a devil in disguise [11], many viewers and readers may believe the ghost’s claim that Gertrude was adulterous, and that Claudius thereby made his brother and king a cuckold, husband of an unfaithful wife.

But the ghost may be like Leontes in The Winter’s Tale, mistaken to believe Gertrude was adulterous, and may need to be “purged” of this sinfully mistaken belief. Nowhere in the play do Gertrude or Claudius admit adultery. She may have married Claudius only at his urging to fend off a threat of attack from Fortinbras.

This would result in a major shift in how we read the ghost, the prince, and the play.



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


[1] POLONIUS TO OPHELIA:
“'Tis told me he hath very oft of late
Given private time to you, and you yourself
Have of your audience been most free and bounteous.
(1.3.99-102)

[2] GHOST TO HAMLET:
Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,
With witchcraft of his wits, with traitorous gifts—
O wicked wit and gifts, that have the power
So to seduce!—won to his shameful lust
The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen.
(1.5.49-53)

[3] Cristina León Alfar
Women and Shakespeare's Cuckoldry Plays: Shifting Narratives of Marital Betrayal
https://www.routledge.com/Women-and-Shakespeares-Cuckoldry-Plays-Shifting-Narratives-of-Marital/Alfar/p/book/9780367881658
(Link above includes link to sample and much of the introduction.)

[4] LAERTES TO OPHELIA:
The chariest maid is prodigal enough
If she unmask her beauty to the moon.
(1.3.40-41)

POLONIUS TO OPHELIA:
I do know,
When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul
Lends the tongue vows.
(1.3.124-126)

See also my previous blogpost on how Laertes and Polonius miss the main point of the Prodigal Son parable: https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2019/01/getting-prodigal-wrong-in-hamlet-13.html

[5]  OPHELIA:
Tomorrow 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 donned his clothes
  And dupped the chamber door,
 Let in the maid, that out a maid
  Never departed more.
KING:  Pretty Ophelia—
OPHELIA:  Indeed, without an oath, I’ll make an end on ’t:
 By Gis and by Saint Charity,
  Alack and fie for shame,
 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.”
He answers:
 “So would I ’a done, by yonder sun,
  An thou hadst not come to my bed.”
(4.5.53-71)

[6] OPHELIA: My lord, he hath importuned me with love
In honorable fashion—
POLONIUS: Ay, “fashion” you may call it. Go to, go to!
OPHELIA: And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord,
With almost all the holy vows of heaven.
(1.3.119-123)

[7] For example, James Heburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, had made a “handfast” marriage with Anna Throndsen, recognized as valid in Norway but not in Scotland or England. See the Wikipedia article on Anna, which (as of 11/12/2023) states,
“Anna was married to Bothwell,[3] by handfasting, while he was doing business in Denmark. The marriage was considered legitimate under Dano-Norwegian law,[4] but was, and is still, treated as dubious or invalid, by English and Scots historians. For this reason, most English books refer to her, incorrectly, as a "mistress", or jilted lover. Anna's later Bergen lawsuit against Bothwell (ca. 1570), which held him to account for wrongful behaviour as a husband, as well as writings of the Scots Earl of Moray, lend credence to the fact that a marriage did transpire.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Throndsen

[8] HAMLET to OPHELIA:  I have heard of your paintings too, well
enough. God hath given you one face, and you
make yourselves another.
(3.1.154-156)

[9] “Nunnery” means convent but was also slang for brothel, so Hamlet implies that Ophelia should get to a (literal) convent because she is already too tempting, or may in the future turn out to be unfaithful like a whore, or that by agreeing with her father to act as bait for spying on him, she has sold out, has prostituted herself. See 3.1:
HAMLET TO OPHELIA:

Get thee to a nunnery.(3.1.131)
Go thy ways to a nunnery. (3.1.140)
Get thee to a
nunnery, farewell. (3.1.148-149)
To a nunnery, go, and
quickly too. Farewell. (3.1.151-152)
To a nunnery, go. (3.1.162)

[10] In at least three scenes (3.1, 4.7, and 5.1) Gertrude’s statements express that she considers Ophelia an ally, and/or that she is an ally of Ophelia:

GERTRUDE to OPHELIA:
And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish
That your good beauties be the happy cause
Of Hamlet’s wildness. So shall I hope your virtues
Will bring him to his wonted way again,
To both your honors.
OPHELIA  Madam, I wish it may.
(3.1.42-46)

In 4.7.190-208 (Gertrude’s account of Ophelia’s death), Gertrude makes it a point to portray Ophelia as if she died in faith, and not in a suicide of despair.

In 5.1, she says this at Ophelia’s grave:
QUEEN  Sweets to the sweet, farewell!    [She scatters flowers.]
I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet’s wife;
I thought thy bride-bed to have decked, sweet maid,
And not have strewed thy grave.
(5.1.254-257)

[11] Horatio and Hamlet both recognize that the ghost may be a devil in disguise:
HORATIO
What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord?
Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff
That beetles o’er his base into the sea,
And there assume some other horrible form
Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason
And draw you into madness? Think of it.
(1.4.77-82)

HAMLET:
The spirit that I have seen
May be a devil, and the devil hath power
T’ assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps,
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn me.
(2.2.627-632)






IMAGES: Left (Ophelia), Right (Gertrude):
L collage, Top L:
Arthur Hughes (1832–1915)
Ophelia (circa 1851-1853). Detail. Public domain via https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Arthur_Hughes_-_Ophelia_(First_Version).JPG

L Collage, Top R:
Henri Gervex  (1852–1929)
Nellie Melba as Ophelia in the opera Hamlet by Ambroise Thomas [before 1910?]. Detail.
Public domain via https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nellie_Melba_as_Ophelia_in_Hamlet_(opera)_-_Henri_Gervex_ON2010-03-12.jpg

L Collage, Bottom L:
Ernest Hébert  (1817–1908)
Ophelia, 19th century. Detail. Public domain via
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:H%C3%A9bert_Ofelia.jpg

L Collage, Bottom R:
Alexandre Cabanel  (1823–1889)
Ophelia, 1883. Detail. Public domain via https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alexandre_Cabanel,_Ophelia.JPG

Center: Book cover, via https://covers.vitalbook.com/vbid/9781134773459/width/720

R Collage, Top L:
William Salter Herrick (c.1807-1891).
Hamlet in the Queen's chamber (ca. 1857), detail.
Public domain via Folger Shakespeare Library and Luna at  blob:null/00b8a60f-9369-4ef0-a008-785f3d9f0bd0

R Collage, Top R:
Edwin Austin Abbey  (1852–1911)
The Queen in "Hamlet" (1895), detail.
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
Public domain via https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Abbey_-_The_Queen_in_Hamlet.jpg

R Collage, Bottom L:
Edwin Austin Abbey  (1852–1911)
The Play Scene in “Hamlet” (Act III, Scene 2) (1897), detail.
Yale University Art Gallery. Public domain via
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Edwin_Austin_Abbey_-_The_Play_Scene_in_%E2%80%9CHamlet%E2%80%9D_(Act_III,_Scene_2)_-_1937.2171_-_Yale_University_Art_Gallery.jpg

R Collage, Bottom R:
Benjamin West  (1738–1820)
Hamlet: Act IV, Scene V (Ophelia Before the King and Queen), 1792. Detail.
Cincinnati Art Museum. Public domain via https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Benjamin_West_-_Hamlet-_Act_IV,_Scene_V_(Ophelia_Before_the_King_and_Queen)_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

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INDEX OF OPHELIA POSTS:
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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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