Hamlet - Shakespeares Ophelia as Modern Icon Essay -- Hamlet essays

hamlet - Shakespeares Ophelia as Modern IconShakespeares Ophelia is not lacking in attention. As one of Shakespeares most popular pistillate characters she has enjoyed some appellations from the bard. Fair Ophelia. Most beautified Ophelia. Pretty Ophelia. Sweet Ophelia. Dear Ophelia. beautiful Opheliasweet maidpoor wretch. Poor Ophelia. (Vest 1) All of these names for Ophelia potty be found in Shakespeares The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Since Shakespeares incarnation of Ophelia many declare felt the need to offer their opinions of Ophelia as a character. Poor wisplike Ophelia. Devastated and emotionally exhausted Ophelia. Pensive, fair-haired, blue-eyed daughter of the north. Ophelia the young, the beauteous, the harmless, the pious. Clumsy Opheliaopen-hearted entirely light-brained unequal to(p) either of understanding or of curing. A weak creature, wanting in truthfulness, in purpose, in force of character, and sole(prenominal) interesting when she loses the littl e wits she had. (Vest 1) These are only a few of the hundreds. For a character that only appears in five of the 20 scenes in Hamlet, Ophelia has garnered a great push-down store of attention from analysts, critics, artists, actresses, fiction writers, psychologists, and adolescent girls alike. Readers are consistently struck by her character that seems relatively insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Ophelia is many times viewed as only important in relation to Hamlet and the effect she has on him. Ophelia is not just important in this respect, but also in respect to what she tells us ab out the society she came out of and the society we live in today. First analyzing Shakespeare and his precursors then concentrating on the ripe day prominence of ... ...s Write About Their Search For Self. New York harper Collins, 1999.Vest, James M. The French Face of Ophelia from Belleforest to Baudelaire. Lanham University Press of America, 1989.Appendix 1 Ophelias Legs (Voyeur in a Sma ll Town)From Dead Snakes, Cats and the IRS, Poetry of Rock and RebellionI watch eyesthinking of an oldfree mans story,seeing slopinggilts of lightcat-backed mountainsbristling in the distancethere is an Ophelias legssofter than blood in the signshes unfolded towardcrossed by doves flightand spider tip-toeing-the angle determineswhat will notice-eachs undercoat fingers reachthrough as quietly as they must be found.I see this woman, her lovers,some have been mine.The days damn here,filigreed as hair or knowing-Theresa Courtney Gillespie