Ophelia

Question 1

How is a semantic field of monetary language used by polonius when advising his daughter in act 1 scene 3

Answer 1

“Most free and bounteous” “you have ta’en these tenders as true pay / which are not sterling”
“Set your entreatments at a higher rate” “investments”
- takes her words and uses them against her (“many tenders of his affection”) > manipulative
- financial value of Victorian women + transactional nature of vic marriage market

Question 2

What words from Ophelia in 3,1 suggest hamlet mistreated Ophelia during their relationship

Answer 2

“Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind”
- speaking in verse > lyrical rhythmic her words highlights her beauty and innocence
- her disillusionment as she returns hamlets gifts > worthless and meaningless as he mistreated her proving his affection was insincere

Question 3

How do Claudius and Gertrude refer to Ophelia in act 4,5 as she begins to go mad

Answer 3

“Sweet lady”, “pretty lady”, “pretty Ophelia”

Question 4

How is Ophelia hamlet’s foil in their presentation of madness

Answer 4

• acting mad vs actual madness
• public expression of madness, asking for audience vs soliloquising
• romanticised beautiful feminine madness, singing, giving out flowers vs melancholic self deprecating madness
  Critic SHOWALTER: “Ophelia felled to much, as Hamlet thinks too much” -“ Hamlet was the prototype of melancholy male madness, associated with intellectual and imaginative genius; but Ophelia’s affliction was love madness”

Question 5

How doe Gertrude present Ophelia’s death in 4,7 and why

Answer 5

“Therewith fantastic garlands” - natural imagery > romanticised presentation of female death often seen in male’s art > male gaze almost fetishised
“Mermaid like”
“Like a creature native”
“envious silver broke” > personification if nature changing the narrative of her death to protect her (suicide = sin), gets a “Christian burial” suggesting nature is jealous of Ophelia’s she is too beautiful for this world

Question 6

Explore the connotations around Laertes words of dead Ophelia in 5,1

Answer 6

“From her fair and unpolluted flesh may violets spring”
- irony > upolluted meaning chaste / virgin > relationship with hamlet drove her into madness
- reference to the physicality of death
- flowers = motif associated w Ophelia> romanticised male view of female death