Part 57: My favorite things about Ophelia
My favorite things about Ophelia? 1. By obeying her father too much, she demonstrates the failure of over-valued Elizabethan parental [and political] authority, but also displays heroic patience and self-control. 2. She calls out the potential hypocrisy of her brother. 3. She understands (although her father and brother do not) that “almost all the holy vows of heaven” from Hamlet are most probably a marriage betrothal, and that she could be Denmark’s next queen. 4. She reveals her love for Hamlet even while giving back his love poems, obeying her father. 5. She talks back to Hamlet in the nunnery scene and at “The Mousetrap” play, bold to act this way with the prince. 6. She uses coded meanings of flowers to criticize her king and queen. 7. She sings a bawdy song, perhaps mourning her unspent virginity like Jephthah’s daughter, or mourning the loss of Hamlet as lover, expressing disappointment at being denied access to Hamlet by her father, and then by Hamlet as well. 8. S...