- 19 Mar, 2021
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Hamlet, Ophelia’s Madness and K Branagh’s Adaptation
Frailty, thy name is woman!” (Shakespeare, 2012, 1.2.146) highlights Hamlet’s misogynistic and puritanic perceptions of women, thus, enforcing negative femininity and patriarchal principles endorsed in William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet. Shakespeare’s observation of the ‘ideal’ women is reflected in Ophelia as she is characterised as the typical renaissance female; chaste, gentle, obedient, silent and aware of her place she is stereotypical of women frailty with her enactment of melancholy and hysteria. (Rackin, 2005, p.11) even when she becomes ‘mad’ (Shakespeare, 2012, 4.5). However, Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of Hamlet (1996) does not depict Ophelia as frail, instead it provides a feminist perspective by interpreting her madness as a process of gender liberation. This essay will present Ophelia’s challenge against the patriarchy through her emergence of voice, sexuality, identity and the mirroring of a corrupt society by exploring Branagh utilisation of mise-en-scène; setting, costume and acting, as well as unfeminine speech as means to offer a sympathetic, feminist view of Ophelia. Psychonalysis through popular psycologists Freud, Lacan, Jung