At the dawn of the contemporary world, stereotypes of the most vulnerable member of the society, women, continues to flourish like Perennial River. Will this saga of immense struggle and optimism ever end? Literature has always been an evidence of centuries of female subjugation. Ophelia of Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a powerful representative of universal struggle of women .The quest of understanding the universality of mental conflicts of the women and also the reason behind the increasing rate of self destruction among young girls , Mary Pipher wrote ‘Reviving Ophelia’. This paper is an attempt to unravel female sensitivity through ‘Reviving Ophelia’.
Revelation of Universal Women’s Sufferage through ‘Reviving Ophelia’
Hamlet is a tragedy…show more content… It is when the girl shifts into a broader culture, outside their secured world they are hunted by the factors sexism and other societal pressures. Peer pressures compel them to deny their inner selves and confirm to the culture the society provides. Mary Pipher in her book case studies shares her experience of counseling adolescent girls, and it projects how they face diversity of challenges. Media and proplur culture influence they in every way and the media saturated culture rules them. They are always indulged in fulfilling the expectations of family, peers but inside them there is a quest for freedom and to become independent. But the pressures of conformity suppress the inert thoughts churning in their minds.
Pipher meets a girl who said, “Everything good in me died in junior high school.” It is hard to accept such a response from teenage girl. This section of the society strives hard to place themselves in the world of man, and in the race of attaining the stakes of felinity they gradually lose their individuality. The American culture recommends the girls to part from their parents when they reach certain age. Adolescence is the times when they need their utmost care and expect a response which tends to be supporting rather than…show more content… “What we consider madness, whether it appears in women or in men, is either the acting out of the devalued females role or the total or partial rejection of one’s sex-role stereotype.” There exists a complicated relationship which exists between women and madness. Ophelia of Hamlet consciously and unconsciously performs the roles as the daughter of Polonius, a seducer and then is drifted to a mad woman. Madness was an escape from all the relations and ties, but she was left alienated. The reason for Ophelia to fall into the well of madness was not recognized as it could be the melancholy of love or the deceasement of her father. Ophelia was also manipulated by the moralistic aspect of the