Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Sweets to the sweet

So Hamlet isn't mad, but was Ophelia?
As shrewd Claudius said "Madness in great ones must not unwatched go."
I had assumed before I read the play, that Ophelia "went dotty" after she found her lost love killed her father, and being a quite natural and sensitive girl took it rather harshly. However, after reading Act III scene ii when Hamlet sets up the play to trap Claudius, and banters a little too freely with the Royal couple and Ophelia, I began to suspect that A: he wasn't psychotic, broken or cold-hearted B: he planned to marry Ophelia (or he wasted considerate time on her) C: his awkward-family-blabbing was meant to tell Ophelia what was really happening and how he really felt and even suspected about Claudius. D: he got distracted and overdid it, making Claudius (and Gertrude) alarmed and suspicious.
Thus the question remains, WWOHD? (what would Ophelia have done?) after she finds out her dad mysteriously dead from hiding behind a curtain in the queen's room, and his murderer mysteriously shuffled off, whilst her brother is gone to France leaving her relatively abandoned and alone for her to ponder the many mysteries of the Royal couple?
If she is the unsuspecting clueless and highly sensitive type, as most movies/children's books portray, she obviously just couldn't handle whatever possibilities this meant, and decided to pine away in a really psycho fashion and drown herself to solve the problems. A solution which isn't relatively new to humanity, and is today's equivalent being classified "bi-polar", put on meds, and then suicide.
However, after reading her "madness" last night, I found it difficult to believe this for several reasons. 6 her character, which didn't seem unable from balancing her obedience and love without flaw previously or 5 that her despair of love for Hamlet would some how rule out her love for her brother Laertes (or her christian discretion) and 4 that all of Hamlet's loose tongue and reaction from the king that night would have gone to waste i.e. somehow knowing that Hamlet's sanity and suspicion, and very possible framing would prevent her from being unable to cope with familial tension, finally 3 that her madness was very suspicious in itself by subversive messages applying more to the queen and king than herself i.e. her carefully selected songs, flower symbols, and desire to meet the queen. And the queen's suspicious summary 2 which was a very odd accident, as well as the queen's guilt before, and the villagers rumor of suicide, making the whole of it rather suspicious, set-up and very 1 convenient: Laertes momentary distraction and grief paralysing him from further harm to Claudius and instead focused on Hamlet.