Representing Ophelia Character Analysis

Ophelia is often thought of as one of the most obscure characters in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. This is the result of her voice throughout the play only being heard in response to the voice of others and often dismissed as opaque nonsense. In turn, this leaves the audience open to depict her mute and physical interactions in a way which will correspond with their own thoughts and reasoning, forming Ophelia into much more well-rounded character than that of which we see in the text. As Showalter states in her essay, Representing Ophelia: Women, Madness, and the Responsibilities of Feminist Criticism, “there is no ‘true’ Ophelia […] but perhaps only a Cubist Ophelia of multiple perspectives, more than the sum of all her parts,” (Showalter 297). If you agree with Showalter, you’ll believe that in order for one to fully understand Ophelia’s

Many feminist critics would agree that Ophelia’s madness is directly related to her femininity and sexuality, suggesting that the female figure is inherently deranged. Showalter examines these ideas, posing the question, “[…] does she represent the textual archetype of woman as madness or madness as woman?” (Showalter 283). Showalter acknowledges a few different renditions on this topic, most of which center around the belief that Ophelia and Hamlet were sexually involved with each other and Ophelia’s psychosis was ultimately the “predictable outcome of erotomania” (Showalter 287). She later states that “Late Augustan stereotypes of female love-melancholy were sentimentalized versions which minimized the force of female sexuality, and made female insanity a pretty stimulant to male sensibility,” (Showalter 288). This idea further emphasizes the belief that Ophelia’s madness was purely the result of “female love-melancholy” originating from her sexual indiscretions with