Jacobethan Revenge Tragedy

WS 2004

Dr. Hugo Keiper

FEMINIST CRITICISM AND HAMLET

Theories: a) French feminists: focused their attention on language. They have said that the structure of language priviledges masculinity by associating them with things and values more appreciated by the (masculine-dominated) culture. Women have to represent themselves as men imagine them or they become the invisible and unheard sex. b) American feminists: didnt philosophize about language but they anylyzed literary texts. These critics examined women characters by showing how clearly this tradition of systematic masculine dominance is included in the literary tradition. c) British feminists: regard their own critical practice as more political than that of American feminists. In the view of British feminists, the American opposition to male stereotypes that denigrate women has often led to counterstereotypes of feminine virtue that ignore real differences of race, class, and culture among women. INVESTIGATION OF OPHELIA: Elaine Showalter is the founder of feminist criticism in the United States who developed the concept and practice of gynocriticism (gynocritics: look for how women's writing is different from men's). Showalter wrote an essay called Representing Ophelia: Women, Madness, and the Responsibilities of Feminist Criticism which is the basis of our investigation. Ophelias Madness Ophelias behaviour and appearance are characteristic of the malady the Elizabethans would have diagnosed as love-melancholy, or erotomania. Throughout the 17 th century, Ophelias madness, in contrast to Hamlets, was understood and, therefore represented as a form of sexual melancholy. To the Victorian mind, Ophelia typified the kind of mental breakdown women were believed to be prone to during the period of sexual awakening. Ophelia even embodied madness to such an extent that mad women were expected to look and behave like her in order to be considered truly mad. Ophelias relationship to Polonius and Laertes Almost as soon as Laertes finishes lecturing Ophelia about her sexuality, her father, Polonius gives Ophelia his advice about the matter as well. Here, Ophelia is terrified of her father, of her lover, and of life itself". Polonius scoffs at Ophelia's suggestion that Hamlet's interest in her is romantic, and instead warns her that she had better not make him the grandfather of a bastard grandchild. Ophelia feels trapped by the men in her life Ophelia feels. Ophelia's feelings are immediately negated by her brother and father, and worse, her father's interests seem to lie less with his daughter's feelings but more with his own reputation. Significance of nothing In the Mouse-trap scene, Ophelia says I think nothing. Then he says Thats a fair thought to lie between maids legs. She says What is, my lord and he answers NOTHING (p.176). In Elizabethan slang, nothing was a term for the female genitalia. To Hamlet then nothing is what lies between maids legs, which means womens sexual organs. When Ophelia is mad, Gertrude says that Her speech is nothing. Ophelias story becomes the Story of O the zero.
Susi Muhr, Susi Lackner

Jacobethan Revenge Tragedy

WS 2004

Dr. Hugo Keiper

Femininity Ophelia represents the strong emotions that the Elizabethans thought womanish and unmanly. Hamlets disgust at the feminine passivity in himself is translated into violent revulsion against women and into his brutal behavior toward Ophelia. Ophelias symbolic meanings are specifically feminine. Whereas for Hamlet madness is linked with culture, for Ophelia it is a product of the female body and female nature. On the Elizabethan stage, the conventions of female insanity were sharply defined. Ophelia dresses in white, decks herself with garlands of wildflowers, has her hair down and her life ends by drowning. All of these conventions carry specific messages about femininity and sexuality. Ophelias virginal white is contrasted with Hamlets black suits. The phallic long purples which she wears to her death indicate an improper sexuality. When in Elizabethan drama, a woman enters with loose hair it indicates that she might either be mad or the victim of rape. The Augustan Representation of Ophelia is a denial one. It was more or less a sentimentalised version which made female insanity a pretty stimulant to male sensibility. Most of Ophelias lines were cut because of Augustans objections to the levity and indecency of Ophelias speech. Her role was often played by a singer instead of an actress, making the mode of representation musical rather than visual or verbal. Romance picture of Ophelia . was an embrace one. Ophelia stands for sexual victimization, bereavement, and thrilling emotional extremity. She is a young girl passionately and visibly driven to picturesque madness. But Iconography of the Romantic Ophelia had begun to infiltrate reality. Real mad women were often thought to be too theatrical. On the Victorian stage Ophelia was acted in feminine terms as a consistent psychological study in sexual intimidation, a girl terrified of her father, of her lover, and of life itself. tradition of Ophelias dressing in white was challenged (whiteness was part of Ophelias essential feminine symbolism and also made her transparency) the right to intensify Ophelias presence by clothing her in Hamlets black was won Freudian Representation By the turn of the century, there was both a male and female discourse of Ophelia. The Freudian interpretation of Hamlet concentrated on the hero but also had much to do with the resexualization of Ophelia. Freuds leading British disciple Jones argued that Ophelia may be innocent and docile, but she is very aware of her body. This Freudian edict has produced such extreme readings as that Shakespeare intends us to see Ophelia as a loose woman and that she has been sleeping with Hamlet. The most Freudian interpretation reads Hamlet as two parallel male and female psychodramas, the counter pointed stories of the incestuous attachments of Hamlet and Ophelia. Hamlet is neurotically attached to his mother Ophelia has an unresolved oedipal attachment to her father. o Can be seen in productions since 1950, where directors have hinted on incestuous links between Ophelia and her father Since the 1960s the Freudian representation of Ophelia has been supplemented by an antipsychiatry that represents Ophelias madness in more contemporary terms. In contrast to the psychoanalytical
Susi Muhr, Susi Lackner

Jacobethan Revenge Tragedy

WS 2004

Dr. Hugo Keiper

representation of Ophelias sexual unconscious that connected her essential femininity to Freuds essay on female sexuality and hysteria, her madness is now seen in medical in biochemical terms, as schizophrenia. The schizophrenic woman has become the cultural icon of dualistic femininity in the mid-twentieth century. Since the 1970s there is a feminist discourse which has offered a new perspective on Ophelias madness as a protest and rebellion. For many theorists, the madwoman is a heroine who rebels against the family and the social order.

Susi Muhr, Susi Lackner