Part 43: Ophelia's Owl and Hamlet's Mousetrap (cont.)

Last week [1] I shared my belated realization that, after seeing Hamlet’s playlet that he calls “The Mousetrap” [2], Ophelia refers to a folktale in which a baker’s daughter is turned into an owl [3], and that an owl is a “living mousetrap.”

For now, I’d like to call mousetraps masculine and externalizing, and owls, female and internalizing.

In Shakespeare’s Elizabethan slang, a man had a “thing” between his legs, an external organ; a woman had a “nothing,” an “O,” which could potentially receive a man’s “thing” and which led to her womb, another “O” of potential.[4]

Hamlet’s mousetrap analogy for a play to catch the king’s conscience [5] is an external thing, as the script and players (like moving parts of a mousetrap) are external to his body. One sets a mousetrap and waits.[6]

In contrast, the owl, a living mousetrap, consumes mice, takes them inside itself, later regurgitating bones and hair.

Mousetraps are externalizing and male, like rapiers that Hamlet and Laertes use to duel. They do violence to mice at a distance. The owl, by swallowing, has a closer, even internal proximity to its prey.

If Hamlet’s mousetrap that catches the conscience of the king is an allusion to St. Augustine (and his analogy of the crucifixion of Jesus as a mousetrap for the devil), note that there is danger both for Hamlet, whose analogy is external, and for Ophelia, whose analogy is more internal.

And like Ophelia’s owl, if Gertrude builds a better mousetrap by drinking from what may be a poison cup [7], she internalizes the cup’s dangerous mystery [8], like the owl does mice.

Ophelia’s allusion to a baker’s daughter, changed into an owl, is internal and self-scrutinizing: She generously gropes toward an awareness of own sins, having rejected Hamlet in obedience to her father, like the baker’s daughter rejecting the beggar at the door. Ophelia judges devils within herself first [9], perhaps unlike Hamlet before his sea voyage, more busy playing God to condemn sins of Claudius than to scrutinize his own.

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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/

[1] See last week’s post, “Part 42: A Living Mousetrap: Ophelia’s Owl,” April 22, 2024. https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2024/04/part-42-living-mousetrap-ophelias-owl.html

[2] 3.2.261. As mentioned last week, Hamlet’s naming of the playlet “The Mousetrap” is believed to be a reference to St. Augustine of Hippo’s assertion that the cross on which Jesus was crucified was a mousetrap for the devil: Satan believed he had triumphed, but the resurrection soon proved he had been defeated.
— See 3.2.261 (Folger) or 3.2.232 (Arden). Editor Harold Jenkins, in the Arden note for line 232, writes, “J. Doebler (SQ XXXIII, 161 ff.) discusses the theological symbolism of the mousetrap, as in Augustine’s allusion to the cross of Christ as the mousetrap of the devil, who is trapped by his own corruption. The analogy with Claudius is pertinent…”
— Augustine of Hippo: “The Devil exulted when Christ died, and by that very death of Christ the Devil was overcome: he took food, as it were, from a trap. He gloated over the death as if he were appointed a deputy of death; that in which he rejoiced became a prison for him. The cross of the Lord became a trap for the Devil; the death of the Lord was the food by which he was ensnared. And behold, our Lord Jesus Christ rose again.”
— See Thomas L. McDonald (accessed 1/22/2023): https://weirdcatholic.com/2019/03/25/the-devils-mousetrap-an-image-of-the-annunciation/

[3] 4.5.47-49. As mentioned last week, regarding Ophelia’s reference to the tale of the owl as the baker’s daughter, a folktale retelling of the gospel tale of the rich man and Lazarus (and recalling that the ghost refers to Lazarus in describing the effect he thinks the poison had on his skin), see my post of April 27, 2021:
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2021/04/the-begggar-lazarus-at-bakers-door-in.html

[4] See previous post, “ A Thing of Nothing: Shakespeare anatomy joke,” August 21, 2017, https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2017/08/a-thing-of-nothing-shakespeare-anatomy.html

[5] Hamlet catching the conscience of an adulterous and murderous king also alludes to the Bible tale of King David, whose conscience is caught by the prophet Nathan after David had an affair with Bathsheba, another man’s wife, and arranged for the death of her husband, Uriah. See previous blog post,
HAMLET HAS A DAVID COMPLEX, September 07, 2017, https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2017/09/hamlet-has-david-complex-freud-claimed.html

[6] While it’s true that one usually sets a mousetrap and returns later to check it, we might note that Hamlet is particularly impatient, with running commentary during the playlet, interpreting for the court. Ophelia notices and tells Hamlet, “You are as good as a chorus, my lord” (3.2.269), referring to how the chorus in Greek Drama would comment on the scenes. Hamlet doesn’t want to let his mousetrap for the conscience of the king do its work independent of him; he wants to be its director, influencing not only the players, but also the spectators.

[7] Poison is often associated with women, and with cowardly (or effeminate) men, as various scholars have noted. See KAYE, DARA, “Murther Most Foul: Poison as a Gendered Weapon in Shakespeare,” 2012, The Shakespeare Institute Review, p.18-26, http://www.shakesreview.com/uploads/1/1/9/6/11968969/the_shakespeare_institute_review_issue_1_shakespeare_death_and_mortality_general_editor_dave_paxton.pdf

Also see SADOWSKI, PIOTR. “‘Foul, Strange and Unnatural’: Poison as a Murder Weapon in English Renaissance Drama.” Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal 53, no. 3 (2020): 139–54. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27092976.

Also see
Poison on the early modern English stage: Plants, paints and potions,
ed. Lisa Hopkins and Bill Angus, 2023, Manchester U. Press, https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526159922/

[8] On Gertrude suspecting poison but testing the mystery of unknowing, and on how in drinking from the cup she builds a better mousetrap, see my post of March 19, 2024:
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2024/03/part-36-gertrude-builds-better.html

[9] On Ophelia as soul-searching and self-reflecting in her apparent madness, judging herself and her own sins before those of others, see my previous post,
Part 17: Ophelia's "Owl" and "False Steward" Allusions: Why in that order?
October 03, 2023,
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2023/10/part-17-ophelias-owl-and-false-steward.html
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Early musing for this post, 4/28/2023:
Consider the difference between a mousetrap and an owl.

A mousetrap is an object one may construct, and set with bait, and leave, to return to later safely and see if it has caught a mouse. No risk, and somewhat external to the self.

An owl, on the other hand, is a devourer of mice.

Ophelia refers to the folktake of the baker's daughter who, as punishment for lacking generosity, is changed into an owl - and Ophelia seems to relate to the daughter, and the owl.

If mice in the Augustinian equation, are devils, then the owl takes into herself the devils in order to gain nourishment; then they regurgitate up the bones and hair of their prey.

It would seem that the owl takes the mouse more personally than the mousetrap.
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IMAGES

LEFT: Vintage mousetrap image via Etsy, cropped. Fair use. https://i.etsystatic.com/8204506/r/il/55f82e/2330759958/il_570xN.2330759958_mclp.jpg

MIDDLE: The Little Owl, 1506, Albrecht Dürer  (1471–1528). Public domain via https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Albrecht_D%C3%BCrer_-_The_Little_Owl_-_WGA7367.jpg

RIGHT: Vintage mousetrap image via DailyLiberal.com. cropped. Fair use. https://www.dailyliberal.com.au/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/Gcbb9hnc7SC3QLqZUqk8Kn/fcca0c4d-42ac-4cc2-b5bc-6112729af5cb.jpg/r10_0_1229_1724_w1240_h1754_fmax.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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