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Impenetrable Ophelia
“Follow her close, give her good watch, I pray you” (IV.5.73).


       Ostensibly, Shakespeare’s Hamlet is the riddling, enigmatic, inscrutable theatrical character par excellence. His motives, madness, conflicting morals and existential struggles are ambiguous to say the least. When analysing his character, Laertes and Fortinbras are often brought in as examples of less extreme characters dealing with similar but more tangible dilemmas. The idea that there may be someone who exceeds Hamlet in instability and incomprehensibility is unfathomable. But if one looks at the character of Ophelia, this notion not only becomes a viable possibility: it becomes unignorable. For while Hamlet is constantly struggling to define himself, leaving a trail of cast-off identities, disgustedly flinging one black outfit after another out of his wardrobe as he tries to remain true to himself, his father’s memory, and his stirring unconscious, we only see Ophelia in borrowed robes. She is dressed up like a dummy, paraded around, and dismissed. With her final exit, we are left with a handful of ill-fitting stage costumes, none of them designed by her. It is significant that in the whole play, she is referred to by name nineteen times in total-- the majority of the time, she is Polonius’ daughter, Laertes’ sister, or merely “she” or “her.”
       Ophelia’s first two lines are questions, but not of the “To be or not to be” variety. “Do you doubt that?” and “No more but so?” (I.3.4-9) imply a state confusion, insecurity, and disorientation-- of  “blinkered” experience, of externally-imposed tunnel vision that leads to a staggering, stilted walk through life. From her first entrance, we are presented with an image of a subservient, passive figure who exists as a response to others rather than in her own right. She is weighed down with others’ expectations, and the fact that we do not hear her contemplate the meaning of it all is not due to her mindlessness, but rather to her never having obtained the privilige of either voicing her thoughts or of questioning her situation. Her mechanical responses to Polonius “I shall obey, my lord” (I.3136), “as you did command” (II.1.105) and to Hamlet “No, my lord” “Ay, my lord” “I think nothing, my lord” “What is, my lord?” “Ay, my lord” “What means this, my lord?” “‘Tis brief, my lord” (III.2.106-141) are automatic. Resignation has become second-nature.
       With the lines “‘Tis in my memory lock’d,/And you yourself shall keep the key of it” (I.3.85), Ophelia surrenders all responsibility to Laertes: the image of his access to her memory is a powerful one. This, in turn, juxtaposed against Polonius’ demand to possess full access to their relationship, creates a disturbing picture of a young woman’s complete lack of privacy. The very language Polonius uses, “Give me up the truth” (I.3.98) implies surrender. The fact that the word “truth,” is used to describe what she is meant to give up, loads the demand to breaking point.
       But Ophelia is not only fenced in and loaded down. She also lacks the capacity to act, so that even if she were released from her confines, she would be at a loss with what to do with her freedom. And this state of precariousness is evident in her frightend reply to Polonius “My lord, I do not know,/But truly I do fear it” (II.1.83). It is the stumbling blindly while everyone around is concerned with supposedly more important matters that gives her situation such horror. The repeated references to her obedience (“in her duty and obedience,” “all given to mine ear,” “she took the fruits of my advice” II.2.106-145) and prompts like “Ophelia, walk you here” (III.1.42) cause one to wonder what would happen if her every move was not blocked or stage managed. For when she occasionally finds herself in a temporary spotlight, it has the uncomfortable feel of headlights, and the effect is a traumatising one that she cannot even begin to describe. “I do not know, my lord, what I should think” (I.3.104), she says. This applies to more than merely the questions she is asked: it is the story of her quotidian existence. Ophelia never offers an opinion. Her responses are not merely concise or minimalist-- they are neutral, flat, and inscrutable. One could argue that she is more alive during the brief period of madness right before her death than in the whole rest of the play.
       However, in hindsight, it is almost as if Ophelia’s impenetrability throughout the play is in preparation for the great escape: she covers her tracks, offering no insight into her character, in a way Hamlet, with his constant expostulations, is incapable of doing. The audience grows to believe her character of no importance, thanks to comments such as Polonius’ “Marry, I will teach you: think yourself a baby” (I.3.105), so that when it comes to her death, we are startled to find she has vanished. The few traces of her we have are ones made by others in their dealings with her: mainly demands, directions and advice that all have more to do with the person giving them than with Ophelia herself. When Polonius tells her “Tender yourself more dearly,/Or (not to crack the wind of the poor phrase,/Wringing it thus) you’ll tender me a fool” (I.3.107-109), he is more concerned with his own use of clever phrases than with his daughter’s well-being; furthermore, his concern for her honor extends only so far as it affects him.
       This phenomenon occurs repeatedly: anytime Ophelia is either the object of discussion or part of one, the attention inevitably shifts away from her. In the stage directions preceding Hamlet’s soliloquy in Act three, Scene one, only Polonius and Claudius’ exits are marked. It is to be presumed, then, that Hamlet and Ophelia are on the stage together, although Hamlet may not see her. And while the audience is absorbed in hearing Hamlet talk about the pros and cons of committing suicide, Ophelia is forgotten in the background. Once again, she is relegated to the role of passive observer, only summoned back to life when she is once again needed. With the lines “Soft you now,/The fair Ophelia. Nymph, in thy orisons/Be all my sins remembered” (III.1.87-89), we are reminded of her presence, but also of its purpose only as a receptacle for Hamlet’s confessions.
       The situation drastically changes, however, with Ophelia’s sudden madness. Both the audience and the court’s attention is rudely captured with her wild-eyed entrance. In her essay “Representing Ophelia: Women, Madness, and the Responsibiliteis of Feminist Criticism,” Elaine Showalter describes how “In Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, the stage direction that a woman enters with disheveled hair indicates that she might either be mad or the victim of a rape; the disordered hair, her offense against decorum, suggests sensuality in each case” (224). This sensuality, however, comes across as unnatural: it is that of a girl curiously fingering women’s lingerie, trying it on, prancing about in it and making ludicrous poses before losing interest. That she goes from singing sexually explicit songs in Gertrude’s presence to ones about her father’s death once Laertes, the main authority figure now, appears shows that, like a child, she knows that there is only so much acting up one can get away with.       
       But although Ophelia slightly curbs her language with Laertes’ arrival, her transformation in still remarkable. Now, it is those around her who ask the bewildered questions, while Ophelia herself demands they listen (“Say you? Pray you mark,” “Pray you mark.” IV.5.28, 35). It is no coincidence that before Laertes returns, her name is uttered three times in the space of thirty lines: she is no longer Polonius’ daughter, and not yet under her brother’s thumb.
       It is now necessary to coax out the Ophelia behind the madness, the one overshadowed by her compliance to the wishes of the three men in her life-- it is no longer enough to speak of her in relation to them. The problem, however, is that nobody knows that Ophelia. And they have only so many chances to uncover her before she loses interest or patience: for the mad Ophelia is not available as a tool for scrutiny and experimentation. While the obedient Ophelia swallows any received offence, this new mutation “spurns enviously at straws” (IV.5.6). She will not be crossed, she will not “get thee to a nunn’ry” (III.1.120), and is immune to Claudius’ flimsy invocation of “Pretty Ophelia!” (IV.5.56).
       The attempts to retain the “pretty” in “pretty Ophelia” continue, however. The first thing Laertes cries when he sees her state is “O rose of May!/Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!/O heavens, is’t possible a young maid’s wits/Should be as mortal as an old man’s life?” (IV.5.157-160). From the text, we are led to believe that Ophelia’s madness has led her to cast off of the main qualities of her femininity-- her loveliness and sweetness are repeatedly invoked, as if to call back her sanity along with them. It is interesting, however, that throughout the history of the play’s performance, the opposite is the case: Ophelia onstage has always been portrayed as intensely feminine even in the throes of her insanity. Her madness is itself a manifestation of her femininity as well as sexuality. It is not incidental that the songs she sings are full of references to seduced and abandoned maidens. Showalter states that “the illustrations of Ophelia have played a major role in the theoretical construction of female insanity” (223).
       Ophelia’s madness brings presents a whole new set of problems. While previously we have the dilemma of analysing her speech when it is virtually nonexistent, now we must deal with an excess of it, and determine whether it points to complete madness, or, as Polonius (God rest his soul) would say “Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t” (II.2.67). Laertes, surprisingly, has a flash of insight and acknowledges that “This nothing’s more than matter [...] A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance/ fitted” (173-176). It is the closest any of the characters comes to listening to what she is saying. But that sense is almost immediately stamped out. As soon as she exits the scene, Laertes is once again consumed with thoughts of his father’s death and revenge, and Ophelia’svoice fades into the background once again.
       RD Laing states that “In her madness there is no one there [...] There is no integral self-hood expressed though her actions or utterances. Incomprehensible statements are said by nothing. She has already died. There is now only a vacuum where there was once a person” (195). What Laing does not consider is that Ophelia’s words may be incomprehensible without being “nothing.” The fact that they are not understood by Gertrude, Claudius, Laertes or indeed the audience, is no proof of their emptiness. Ophelia eludes critics because there is not enough evidence to support one definition of her over another. In some ways, she uses her lack of speech and of presence to her own advantage. While she is ignored, maneuvred to fulfill others’ needs and made wholly dependent on those around her, the paradoxical consequence of her lack of voice is the opportunity to escape classification. Any diagnosis one makes of her insanity will eventually prove empty. Indeed, her insanity itself is questionable, and perhaps even more so than Hamlet’s. For while Hamlet reveals that he “perchance hereafter shall think meet/To put an antic disposition on” (II.1.171), we do not see enough of Ophelia either before her father’s death or during the time immediately following it to be able to assess her state. There are no soliloquys, no private moments of reflection, no consultations with close friends. We know next to nothing about how she discovered her father’s death, whether she may have planned to feign insanity with the intent of revenging his death and/or fleeing the palace. This, of course, is mere conjecture, but what it brings into startling focus is how ill-equipped we are to draw any educated conclusions about Ophelia.
       Indeed, the most fitting word to describe Ophelia is “impenetrable,” with its obvious sexual innuendo. Ophelia is repeatedly depicted as virginal, chaste and innocent, and her death signifies that that it will remain unchanged: she will be the eternal virgin, an ideal of immaculate perfection in the memory of those she leaves behind. That idealisation is already evident when Gertrude mournfully says “Sweets to the sweet, farewell!/I hop’d thou shouldst have been my Hamlet’s wife” (V.1.229). Not only did Gertrude never give Ophelia any indication that she favored the match, but even if she had, did Ophelia ever admit she loved Hamlet, or wanted to marry him? Perhaps this is too modern an interpretation, but the point is, we never really hear her say anything about her own feelings about him. Indeed, feeling is the only possession Ophelia is allowed to conceal from the scrutiny of prying eyes and ears. It is no wonder that she is impenetrable-- it is a mode of self-defense. And of course, there is the obvious question of whether Ophelia is actually chaste-- that is, whether she and Hamlet have had sex. This in itself is an impenetrable secret, for no amount of conjecturing will yield conclusive results.
       Perhaps, however, it is in Ophelia’s death that she truly succeeds in eluding us. Surely it is significant that at her own funeral, she slips from the foreground, as paying tribute to her becomes a mere excuse for competition between Laertes and Hamlet:
“I lov’d Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers/Could not with all their quantity of love/Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her? [...] Woo’t weep, woo’t fight, woo’t fast, woo’t tear thyself?/Woo’t drink up eisel, eat a crocadile?/I’ll do’t. Dost thou come here to whine?/To outface me with leaping in her grave?/Be buried quick with her, and so will I” (V.1.255-265) Love for her becomes a measure of their own worth, while the object of that love is inconsequential. The  ludicrousness of this scene is painful to watch, for not only do we have an illicit funeral, an embarrassment as well as heresy that must be kept under wraps, but a family feud and a power struggle between young stallions, as well. When Hamlet, while standing inside the grave, a desecration in itself,  excuses his tantrum saying “Let Hercules himself do what we may,/The cat will mew, and dog have his day” (V.1.277-8), we know that we have entered the territory of tragic farce. If the situation is this ugly on earth, the twisted horror of what Ophelia must be going through in hell is unfathomable.
       Which brings up yet another issue. Showalter states that Ophelia’s madness is her “self-assertion as a woman, quickly followed, as if in retribution, by her death” (V.1.225). But this does not even begin to describe the tragedy of Ophelia’s experience. To do so, we must look at the act of self-annihalation itself. Theologically speaking, suicide offers a direct route to hell, as it involves presuming to end the life God has given one before the expiration date. It is flying in the face of authority, choosing to throw away what is not ours to dispose of. Dante places these sinners in the second round of the seventh circle: over halfway into the depths of the inferno. For Ophelia to commit such an enormous rebellion is startling, in view of her acquiescence up to the point of her breakdown. Could we say perhaps that breakdown, then, is the wrong term, and that it is rather a coming-of-age gone horribly wrong, a metamorphosis into an unrecognizable horror with only the faint outlines of a butterfly, the blossoming of a mad flower?
       If this is the case, then the act of self-destruction is simultaneously the ultimate act of self-assertion. For not only is she shaming the court and her family, talking in riddles to the brother who preached to her, and acting out to an extreme the lesson constantly reiterated by her father, the inability to live without his guidance. She is not merely distorting the pastoral “green girl” image, making a gruesome picture of the carefree, virginal “Rose of May.” She is spitting in the face of the God who placed her in such an impotent position in the first place. And this is the real tragedy of Ophelia’s life and death. Because while Hamlet dies with the knowledge that he has fulfilled his mission, Ophelia has no mission. Her first independent act, what ought to denote the beginning of a life composed of her own initiatives, is the truncating of that life. Her beginning is her end-- the house pet, released into the wild, withers and dies.