Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

While Ophelia and Hamlet are watching “The Mousetrap,” Hamlet is very talkative with running commentary for the court and especially for Claudius, whose conscience he hopes to catch as the players reenact something like the circumstances of King Hamlet’s poisoning.[1]  Ophelia says to Hamlet, “You are as good as a chorus, my lord.” (3.2.269) The chorus served in Greek plays in many ways, including to comment on the actions on and off stage, and to serve as the voice of fear or of conscience.[2] One way to read Ophelia’s statement is that she is simply describing what Hamlet is doing in the immediate context of the scene. But critics and scholars have always loved to explore how a line in a narrow context may apply to larger contexts. THOUGHT EXPERIMENT: What if Shakespeare uses Ophelia’s line to signal to audiences and readers that, in fact, one could read the whole play as if the very talkative Hamlet is a kind of chorus throughout, who sheds light on other characters, who at so...

Many biblical allusions (or biblical plot and theme echoes) associated with Ophelia overlap in her character. All of these were well-known in Elizabethan times. (Not an exhaustive list): 1. Hebrews 12: 6-11 (suffering as a sign of God’s love for the “chosen” who will be “saved).[1] 2. JACOB, ESAU, AND RACHEL (lower right): the “double blessing” for Laertes, and the frustration of Hamlet and Ophelia’s hopes for a match, point to the bible tale of how Jacob wins the birthright by deceit, Esau gets the second blessing, and Jacob’s hopes to marry Rachel are at first frustrated.[2] 3. SALOME (top left): Claudius wants Ophelia and her brother Laertes to dance to his tune and serve his purposes: He uses Ophelia a bait to spy on Hamlet, and Laertes as co-conspirator to to kill Hamlet, who protests the incestuous marriage. Salome danced pleasingly for her stepfather, Herod Antipas, who offered almost any reward. His wife, Salome’s mother (divorced wife of his brother) told her to ask for the he...

Ophelia’s first biblical allusion made her sound, to Elizabethan ears, like Jesus condemning hypocrisy and corruption of authorities. She targets her brother as a potential hypocrite and “libertine.” Laertes warns her not to get too close to Hamlet, that he is above her station, warning her not to lose her chastity to him. Ophelia responds kindly but strongly: I shall the effect of this good lesson keep As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother, Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven, Whiles, like a puffed and reckless libertine, Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads And recks not his own rede.[1] In Matt. 7:13-14, Jesus’ cautions: Avoid the “wide gate” (of too much freedom). “Straight and narrow” for Ophelia becomes “steep and thorny.” In Matt. 23:1-4 Jesus says, do all that “teachers of the law” and Pharisees teach, as they sit in the “seat of Moses” as authorities, but not to do as they do, for they are hypocrites.[2]  ...

WHAT DOES IT MEAN for Elizabethan England, and for its queen and head of England’s church, that Shakespeare’s Hamlet portrays a queen defending Ophelia’s death as not of her own choosing, but fearless and accepted in faith? The play portrays two main attitudes about suicide: Christianity condemned it, while “antique Romans” embraced it as an option for honorable death. Hamlet prevents Horatio from drinking poison [1]; some scholars and productions have proposed that Hamlet offers Claudius the poison cup, and he takes it of his own volition.[2] The play presents gravediggers [3] and a “churlish priest” [4] who assume Ophelia killed herself; before these, no eyewitness accounts, but a queen who asks all to believe that Ophelia’s fall into the brook was not of her own choosing (but due to the crown-envy of a sliver of willow, like the crown envy of Claudius), and that Ophelia accepted her approaching death fearlessly, and in faith. Significantly, this play was written at the end of Eli...

Because Gertrude was paralyzed by guilt and self-pity after the death of Polonius and her talk with her son, might we consider her complicit in Ophelia’s death? I am grateful to Kushi Shah for suggesting Gertrude’s possible complicity [1]. If Gertrude witnessed Hamlet acting in a misogynistic way toward Ophelia, then for Gertrude to do nothing might make her more complicit [2]. It is easy to blame the men as complicit in Ophelia’s death [3]. But Gertrude? She begins scene 4.5 ashamed, not wanting to meet with a distraught Ophelia, saying, “So full of artless jealousy is guilt, / It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.” (4.5.24-25). She may feel guilty for how her marriage to Claudius caused Hamlet’s madness and led to his killing of Ophelia’s father. Gertrude overcomes her reluctance to greet Ophelia, but may be too shocked by Ophelia’s commanding presence, with Ophelia acting like Prince Hamlet’s intended wife – and perhaps rightful queen. Whether in shock at the spectacle, or para...