2
Malkovich
Dr. Strickland
Eng. 378
Summer 2004
Final Paper
Amberyl Malkovich
Modern Madness: Ophelia, Insight, and the Folly of Damlet
“The political question, to sum up, is not error, illusion, alienated consciousness or ideology; it is
truth itself.” ~ Michel Foucault, from Truth and Power
With the rise of the individual in the Modern period the notion of power shifts and ultimately, according to Foucault, functions in many places and in many different ways. In Foucault’s Truth and Power it is his estimation that Modern power infiltrates every sense of “being” and while it can pierce the physical body it engraves itself upon the very essence of being. As power is dispersed, it transforms the very social systems it uses as filters and ultimately changes these systems and the individuals it has come into contact with. During the Modern period the notion of family, in part due to the dispersion of power, changed and so did the import of individual desires and wishes. This diffusion of the Pre-Modern family unit is shown in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” (1600-01) and while Shakespeare does not overtly signify his position on this shift within the text, his development of Ophelia’s madness explores connections between madness and modernity. Ophelia has become somewhat of an iconic image for the oppressed and exploited female contemporarily.
The fascination with Ophelia has existed since “Hamlet” was first preformed and this is still very much in place today. Books, paintings and songs, like that of Natalie Merchant’s (App. 1), celebrating Ophelia have been written and depicted in the centuries following its production and publication. While many critics and readers alike have seen Ophelia as a tragic figure, the largest question still debated is how her madness initially develops. The largest contention has been that it stems from the stress of Hamlet’s rejection and absence, Polonius’s death, and Laertes’s departure and Ophelia is unable to deal with the reality surrounding her and goes mad. The tragedy surrounding Ophelia’s life is obvious but the questions follow how purportedly innocent Ophelia truly is and to what extent she has gone mad. Through an examination of this madness within a Modern context we can more easily characterize Ophelia’s madness and determine what has occurred to trigger her leap into the “glassy stream.” In her essay “Recent Critical Approaches to Shakespeare’s Heroines,” Frances E. Dolan notes that recent criticism of Shakespeare is “[. . .] moving beyond praise or blame for the heroines, as well as beyond groundless speculation about how Shakespeare felt about women, and tired debates over whether Shakespeare was conservative or radical, misogynist or feminist, in order to locate Shakespeare, and his representations of women in his cultural moment rather than our own” (94). In reattaching Shakespeare to his own Modern culture, critics and readers of plays such as “Hamlet” are better able to understand the cultural, political, and societal morays that were in place when Shakespeare penned this famous tragedy. There are many ways heroine can be defined but Ophelia has come to represent such a figure in its many definitions and her appeal has never waned.
Though Ophelia only appears in six scenes (including her burial scene) of the play physically, her presence may be felt throughout much of the play as other characters talk of her with one another. Readers first encounter Ophelia in 1.3 wherein she is in the company of her brother, Laertes, and later her father, Polonius. This initial scene is important in helping establish Ophelia’s state of mind and her “innocence” can initially be questioned. As Laertes advises Ophelia to avoid Hamlet’s advances and only look on them as a passing fancy; she acknowledges she will heed his advice. However Ophelia’s strength becomes evident when she replies “I shall th’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/Whilst liked a puffed and reckless libertine/Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads/And recks not his own rede” (Hamlet 1.3). It is in her own words that she states she will heed his advice but not necessarily take it and further calls in the hypocrisy which Laertes may bring upon himself. She is asking for equality in his advice. Ophelia’s state of mind is in little question at this stage of the play and it is as her father approaches and demands to know what her conversation with Laertes has yielded that the first sign of deception can be noted for as she has just declared she will pay attention to the advice Laertes has given her yet she plays the “innocent” young maid her father expects. Ophelia tells her father that “He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders/Of his affection” (“Hamlet” 1.3). What is meant by “of late” is questionable but it would suggest that the advances Hamlet has made have occurred recently. Ophelia continues to play the role of the “green girl” throughout the rest of the scene and as her father tells her to stay away from Hamlet she falsely informs Polonius that she will comply with his request. Ophelia’s deception and ability to perform for her father illustrate her persuasive powers as well as her coquettish nature. Though the majority of critics have typically found Ophelia to be “innocent” there are those, like Salvador De Madariaga in On Hamlet, who feel differently. Indeed, De Madariaga notes of the above scene “He [Shakespeare] intends the audience to understand that Ophelia is free enough with her favours to disquiet her father and brother” (56). As her integrity, and thus theirs, could come into question or ruin this is why Laertes and Polonius are so concerned in 1.3 that she stay Hamlet’s advances.
Ophelia walks a fine line during the play for she must appear to be the dutiful daughter but at the same time she must win the eye of Hamlet if she is to marry him in the future. In the development of the concept of the individual during the Modern period it is as Polonius advises Laertes, “This above all-to thine own self be true,/And it must follow, as the night the day,/Thou canst not then be false to any man” (Hamlet 1.3). Polonius follows his own advice and is willing to sell out his own daughter to advance his position with the royal family. In the same vein, Ophelia also looks out for herself but as her social position is more tenuous than that of her father she must become both actress and realist throughout the play. It is an important parallel to the Elizabethan society Shakespeare found himself within. The flirtatious games at court were not new and they did afford women at court both the ability to participate in power roles and to become victims of them. Elizabeth I, widely known to have played such games herself, is an example of how a woman of the period could benefit and injure her position at court. Though Elizabeth I was Queen of England she did not have absolute power over her realm and it was through her charm, intelligence and wit that she was able to survive and prosper in a predominantly patriarchal position. In his General Introduction to the Norton Shakespeare, Stephen Greenblatt acknowledges that the royal court was “[. . .] the center of diplomacy, ambition, intrigue, and an intense jockeying for social position. As always in monarchies, proximity of the king’s person was a central mark of favor, so that access to the royal bedchamber was one of the highest aims of the powerful, [. . .]” (26). It is within such a court Ophelia would have been raised if she had not been sent out to a convent and while readers are not informed of either of these circumstances, she would have the knowledge of the inner workings at court to know her position and how she could obtain more political (and thus personal) authority.
Though “Hamlet” is not literarily placed during Elizabeth I’s reign it is undoubtedly a product and reflection of the time period. De Madariaga finds:
It is unhistorical to turn away from it, and to pretend that the scenes in which Hamlet and
Ophelia speak the language of that society, before an audience of that society, have
nothing to do with, do not refer to such a mode of living. Hamlet and Ophelia were two
contemporaries of Raleigh, Essex, and Blount and the girls who played with them- [. . .].
The whole audience knew what the Court was like, and lived in very much the same way.
The situations on the stage, the words, the hints and gestures, familiar to the Court and by
no means caviare to the general. (36)
It is important to note that Ophelia does have some innocence but it is not the universal innocence many critics have come to observe. Much like the stereotypical contemporary adolescent, Ophelia tells her father what he wants to hear while intending on doing something entirely different. She even goes as far to say “I do not know, my lord, what I should think” (“Hamlet” 1.3) but maintains her position and does not allow her father to interrupt her when she explains Hamlet’s “tenders.” It is with Ophelia’s declaration that she will obey her father that 1.3 ends and Shakespeare does not reintroduce her until 2.1 when she must again tell Polonius what developments have occurred in her relationship with Hamlet.
As readers we are not given the opportunity to witness the scene between Ophelia and Hamlet and all we have is her account of the tale. Shaken, she rushes in to tell her father of Hamlet’s frenzied appearance and actions. Polonius inquires if Hamlet is “Mad for thy love?” (“Hamlet” 2.1) and this association is the first made to madness and the two lovers. While Ophelia claims she does not know what sparked Hamlet’s strange behavior it is often believed amongst critics that Hamlet feigns his insanity while Ophelia later succumbs to it. If he is acting at this point in the play it is uncertain as to why he would, other than to establish his madness, do so in front of the woman he supposedly loves. Hamlet has just returned from his visit with the ghost of his father and has been drinking with friends so this may account for part of his disheveled nature but that may only lead us to part of the problem. In Madness and Modernity (1983) C. R. Badcock indicates that drink may account for yet another part of this type of problem. Through a psychoanalytical examination of such occurrences Badcock finds
[. . .] the only satisfaction which the ego can obtain in this way is to lower the tension
between itself and whatever superego it has until it brings the ideal down to its own level,
[. . .]. Indeed, if the superego is part of a cultural, collective phenomenon and if in such
states the divine monarch, chairman or party leader is far beyond the reach of the masses
because of his incomparable pre-eminence, then it follows that only in the dissolution of
the superego that alcohol brings does the ordinary ego find any hope of believing, however
unrealistically, that it is equal to, or as worthy as, the father of the state. (119-20)
In Badcock’s estimation Hamlet would be suffering from the effects of the alcohol which contribute to a megalomaniac state; an enormous enlargement of the ego. By turning to those weaker than he, Hamlet is able to nourish his ego and in causing distress to Ophelia he elevates his own importance.
Polonius has noted that Hamlet’s actions towards Ophelia in 2.1 are from the “very ecstasy of love” and ecstasy can be translated as insanity. Ophelia claims that she has obeyed her father and stayed away from Hamlet and Polonius finds this has contributed to Hamlet’s mad state and wishes to tell the King. Polonius has not spoken to or approached Hamlet in any form up until this point, however and apologizes for not looking out for his daughter but this is problematic for Ophelia has been left alone period. Polonius has gone so far as to discredit his son and merely uses his children like pawns throughout the play. As Ophelia is shaken about her recent meeting with Hamlet, Polonius takes advantage of the situation and tries to make political points yet once again. In 2.2 Polonius reads a letter to King Claudius purportedly given to him by Ophelia which came from Hamlet. The letter reads “To the celestial and my soul’s idol, the most beautified Ophelia [which Polonius declares to be a “vile phrase”]-‘Doubt thou the stars are fire, /Doubt that the sun doth move, /Doubt truth to be a liar, / But never doubt I love. O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers. / [. . .]. /But that I love thee best, O most best, / believe it. Adieu. / Thine evermore, most dear lady, whilst this/ machine is to him, / Hamlet” (“Hamlet” 2.2). If Ophelia has been turning away Hamlet’s letters, however, then we must question where this letter has come from. Perhaps Polonius has written it or it may be an older letter he has only recently confiscated from Ophelia. De Madariaga believes “The solution is this: the letter is old. [And that] Polonius lies when he says it was given to him by his daughter” (38). Ophelia is not present in this scene and is not questioned as to the authenticity of the letter but the nature of Polonius becomes all the more evident when he and Claudius plot to use her as bait to observe Hamlet’s madness.
Though cruelly used by those around her, Ophelia may not seem to realize how she is being treated but she is present for all of 3.1 and when finally directly spoken to Polonius tells her how she must play the decoy while Claudius and he spy on her conversation with Hamlet. Ophelia goes along with the ruse but knows of the arrangement between Claudius and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. It is in this that Ophelia deceives not only her father and brother but also Hamlet. This further marks her ability to be devious and as she is watching out for herself she goes along with whatever group is presently in power and will best benefit her social standing. Though Polonius often notes that Ophelia is beneath Hamlet and that she would only jeopardize their family if she allows him to pursue her, this belief is not found throughout the court. In 3.1 Queen Gertrude remarks to Ophelia “I do wish/ that your good beauties be the happy cause/ Of Hamlet’s wildness; so shall I hope your virtues/ Will bring him to his wonted way again, To both your honours” (“Hamlet”). During Ophelia’s death scene Gertrude also notes “Sweets to the sweet. Farewell. / I had hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet’s wife. I thought thy bride-bed to have decked, sweet maid, /And not t’have strewed thy grave” (“Hamlet” 5.1). Ophelia has been recognized by the Queen, and possibly the court, as a suitable match for Hamlet so the rantings of Polonius are unfounded. It is only in his estimation and through his trickery that Ophelia begins to believe Hamlet is mad and questions his love for her.