Her Mood Will Needs Be Pitied: Agency, Madness, The Pathetic, And Ophelia

Item

Title

Her Mood Will Needs Be Pitied: Agency, Madness, The Pathetic, And Ophelia

Description

Of all the female characters in William Shakespeare's plays, Ophelia from The Tragedy of Hamlet is arguably one of the most interesting. With very few scenes or lines of dialogue, her character has still managed to leave impressions of shocking insanity and deep sadness on generations of artists, actors, and play-going audiences. However, although her character is fascinating and the ending she comes to is notoriously sad, Ophelia cannot truly be considered a tragic heroine. I argue in my paper that because her narrative is so rigidly controlled by the actions, words, and patriarchal influences of those around her, except in her one scene of madness, when she quite literally takes center stage, Ophelia has no agency to act or choose for herself. This makes her character purely pathetic: a victim of circumstance rather than a tragic heroine.

Brinda Charry

Contributor

Keene State College

Creator

Emily Cackowski

Date

2015-04-11

Identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12088/7558

Language

en_US

Subject

English Language and Literature

Type

Presentation

Rights

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Item sets

AEC 2015 Humanities

Site pages

Humanities