My character is Ophelia and I'm primarily focused on her female agency within the play. I'm also interested in how she is referred to in similes, metaphors, and just how others address her and speak about her. This is from Act IV.v when she is singing her song to Gertrude and later on Claudius as well.
"How should I your true
love know
From another one?
By his cockle hat and
staff,
And his sandal shoon."
Cockle can be referred to as a rooster, and roosters are males, so this means,
How can I recognize if your love is true
By use of your cock and staff
"He is dead and gone,
lady,
He is dead and gone,
At his head a
grass-green turf,
At his heels a stone."
This could be about her father, but i think she is referring to Hamlet. In that the man she thought he was is dead and gone.
a turf is an area regarded as someone's personal territory and green is usually considered a calming color, but it is also considered a cautious color and those who wear it are said to be less inclined to trust people. So Hamlet is less inclined to trust people with his personal territory.
Also, heels makes me think of Achilles, and how they are his weakness, but Hamlet has heels of stone, suggesting he does not have a weakness, although as readers we see a different Hamlet then Ophelia sees.
a turf is an area regarded as someone's personal territory and green is usually considered a calming color, but it is also considered a cautious color and those who wear it are said to be less inclined to trust people. So Hamlet is less inclined to trust people with his personal territory.
Also, heels makes me think of Achilles, and how they are his weakness, but Hamlet has heels of stone, suggesting he does not have a weakness, although as readers we see a different Hamlet then Ophelia sees.
"White his shroud as the mountain snow—"
-wrap his body in the ground, or wrap body in a bed
"Larded all with sweet
flowers,
Which bewept to the
ground did not go
With true-love showers."
Literally I think this means a grave, while figuratively it means a bed
the grave has flowers on it, but the bed deflowers a virgin
So she is saying that her sweet flowers, or virginity, fell or was taken, but not due to true love.
"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."
She's calls herself the maid, and maid signifies a virgin.
It interesting how she uses "I" and then switches to call herself "the maid"
This means let in a virgin, let her out not a virgin.
Okay and I attempted to find the meter, (blue=stressed)
Maids, who tend to be thought of as feminine, are all stressed here, suggesting masculinity.
Also if people are doubtful of Ophelia's innocence, her use of "I" basically confirms it.
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.”
"Cock" and "blame" are both masculine, which suggests the man is to blame (Hamlet).
However, since maid was masculine in the previous stanza, I assume that "fie" and "shame" refer to Ophelia's feelings, but also I think she understands she is also to blame. It was naive of her to consider a promise to be completely unbreakable.
He answers:
“So would I ha' done,
by yonder sun,
An thou hadst not come to my bed.”
He says I would marry you, if you hadn't slept with me.
This mimics Hamlet and Ophelia's relationship because we can assume he would have married her, but then she did not understand when he was trying to tell her that he was only acting mad. He had to keep his act up, so Ophelia thinks, that he won't marry her because she slept with him.
This song exemplifies not only that Ophelia is a casualty of circumstance, but she is not mad. She knows exactly what she is talking about, when she is singing the song.
This mimics Hamlet and Ophelia's relationship because we can assume he would have married her, but then she did not understand when he was trying to tell her that he was only acting mad. He had to keep his act up, so Ophelia thinks, that he won't marry her because she slept with him.
This song exemplifies not only that Ophelia is a casualty of circumstance, but she is not mad. She knows exactly what she is talking about, when she is singing the song.
pg106/107
Questions:
Is there anything obvious I did not address?
Is my meter reading correct or fairly close to correct?
How do you feel about Ophelia in terms of her sanity?
Did she "fall" to her death, or was she merely exercising her female agency?
First, let's rescan these lines.
ReplyDeleteTomorrow is Saint Valentine's day
iamb/pyrrhic/spondee/anapest
All in the morning bedtime
dactyl/trochee/trochee
And I a maid at your window
iamb/iamb/pyrrhic/trochee
Others can help you with the rest. Notice, though, that these are also NOT in pentameter.
I think you're taking the masc/fem rhyme too literally. Masc rhyme has nothing to do with gender (unless only men use it in the play, which isn't true). Neither does fem rhyme. So, the connection you're trying to make there won't work.
Green, in literature, symbolizes innocence and lack of experience. It can also symbolize rebirth or envy. Think of the green shade in Lord of the Flies. There is also another use of "green" early on in Hamlet--I just forget where.
Ophelia's song seems to be a recycling of sorts--a bunch of different literary "stuff" all crunched into a few "songs" (we may want to reflect on why she sings...). She turns to the ballad form in Act IV.
What do you make of the implied connection between Ophelia and Orpheus (even their names are similar)? What about Orpheus' tragic end at the hands of the Thracian women? There is an erotic component to this death.
To what degree is Ophelia just a repressed story of Hamlet?
Remember when Ophelia tells her father about Hamlet holding her wrists and shaking her? Notice that Hamlet reacts this way not because of who Ophelia *is*... he reacts this way because of her absence ("No, my good lord, but as you did command,/I did repel his letters and denied/His access to me"). In many ways, Ophelia only emerges in and through voids, silences, and absences--at least until Act IV. So, an interesting exercise would be to focus on the places in the play where Ophelia says and does nothing--then ask why. What is her function as a silent, "dumb" maid that just stands on stage (think the "to be" speech...). How can this silence empower her (i.e., is there something transformative about radical passivity... how does it change the behavior of other characters)?
Why doesn't Ophelia get a soliloquy? The closest she comes is after the "to be" speech, but even then Claudius and Polonius are looking on (perhaps). AND that speech is more about Hamlet than Ophelia. Through his soliloquies, Hamlet can treat himself as an object--he can use speech to understand himself. Ophelia isn't given this opportunity.
In Act IV, she is listened to but not heard. This is why her refrain is "Pray you mark." She REALLY wants to be heard, and yet all that the other characters hear is "nothing" (which, indeed, is how she is represented... she is literally nothing in this play). Nobody understands what she is saying--she can't articulate meaning.
Her death is private while Hamlet's is public (actually, her death is the only private death... she doesn't have an audience). She becomes a dead body that everyone can interpret--"she" doesn't have a story... she just generates them.
All of this is counterargument to your claim that she has agency. If she does indeed have agency then you will need to explain how it manifests itself through all of these silences and voids. Can silence itself work as agency? Why do we always link "agency" with "active." Can it be passive?