Part 23: Queen Ophelia and the male gatekeepers defining her madness
Ophelia is too often portrayed as limp, soft, and either blank-eyed in her apparent innocence, or wide-eyed in her madness, as shown in these paintings by William Gorman Wills (c.1880) and Benjamin West (detail, 1792). This is based more on artistic and dramatic assumptions than on the text of the play. 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 Ha...