Mental Illness And Women In Hamlet

It is often thought that the most accurate reference for the ideology of a time period lies in the literature produced at the time, rather than the factual history. However, Elaine Showalter argues that the most significant tell of an era’s views on mental illness and women is the time’s most famous adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, or, more specifically, the representation of the character Ophelia in the performance. The play itself revolves around Hamlet, who in his own internal struggle mistreats the young woman he had been courting, Ophelia. At one point, Hamlet accidentally murders Ophelia’s father, Polonius, and in the wake of this horrible event, Ophelia becomes mad and eventually commits suicide. Showalter discusses the different

In Victorian lunatic asylums, many doctors turned to Shakespeare to create models for mental health, similar to the Freudian idea of the Oedipus Complex derived from the famous play by Sophocles. According to Dr. John Charles Bucknill in 1859, “Ophelia is the very type of a class of cases by no means uncommon. Every mental physician of moderately extensive experience must have seen many Ophelias. It is a copy from nature” (Showalter). Indeed, Conolly criticized the actresses on stage, believing that by romanticizing and beautifying Ophelia’s pain, it damaged the world’s perception of the harsh reality of mental illness. However, the reality was too painful and disturbing for the world, and in response, reality was edited. Jean-Martin Charcot took patients of mental institutions and posed them as the “ideal” Ophelia, as to make the truth less offense for the neurotypical. In modern day, Ophelia’s madness is often interpreted as schizophrenia, an “intelligible response to the experience of invalidation within the family network, especially to the confliction emotional messages and mystifying double binds experienced by daughters” (Showalter). Some of the more twisted representations of Ophelia used this dark side of mental illness. Director Jonathan Miller had one actress suck her thumb, and another began with “a set of nervous tics and tuggings of hair which by the

At the end of the criticism, Showalker urges feminists to understand the cultural and historical background for every version of Ophelia, and how there is no “true” Ophelia. Showalker reminds us of the diversity of not only the character, but of all women, especially those who suffer from mental