Elaine Showalters Representing Ophelia :: GCSE Coursework Shakespeare Hamlet

Elaine Showalters Representing Ophelia Elaine Showalter defines Ophelia in galore(postnominal) typical ways in her essay Representing Ophelia Women, Madness, and the Responsibilities of Feminist Criticism. She discusses her significance in acknowledgment to how she reveals Hamlets characteristics. Showalter touches upon the idea that Ophelias character is one that is symbolic of the psychiatric theories of Freud. Showalter also attributes the characterization of Ophelia to not only the audience, but also to the actress that plays the part. Never does she suggest that Ophelia could be unsloped that, Ophelia. Her holy article is devoted to individual interpretation of the play in its entirety, focusing primarily on Ophelia. Showalter presents her own ideas by bringing together the ideas of many others such as Jacques Lacan, Susan Mountfort, Ellen Terry, and more. Showalter provides suffice evidence in addressing each argument, but in doing so, she never takes into account the poss ibilities of Shakespeares reasoning. In the discussion of Ophelias character, her madness is almost eternally at the center of controversy. Showalter recognizes and explains many interpretations of her madness. Ophelias madness is, by some, attributed to a predictable outcome of erotomania (225). This term erotomania was what the Elizabethans referred to as female love-melancholy. Yet another interpretation is that of the romanticistic Ophelia, in which she is referred to as a young girl passionately and visibly determined to picturesque madness (228). Later, it is explained what is meant by this definition when Showalter writes about how people viewed Ophelia as a woman who felt too much and somehow allowed these feelings to overcome her. This type of action would drive a person to madness, just as Ophelia is driven into her madness. This conclusion would seem to suggest that her madness stemmed from some sort of erotic passion between herself and Hamlet. This is the type of int erpretation that is given to the audience in many movie versioesult of erotomania. Elaine Showalter creates an argument that is predominantly based on the idea that Ophelias madness is one that comes from her female love-melancholy. Showalter cites many actresses, critics, doctors, and such that completely support this idea, and fork up actually expressed this idea to others in many ways. If it is not true that Hamlet and Ophelia had sexual encounters, then this interpretation of the character and its effect on the entire play can be understood on a completely different level.