Ophelia Hamlet's Hapless Girlfriend Is Reborn Summary
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In the article “Ophelia: Hamlet’s hapless girlfriend is reborn,” Lisa M. Klein analyzes Ophelia and her relationship with Hamlet. At first, she questions who Ophelia is with the simple “Who is Ophelia?” question, then goes into depth with a quick summary of who she is throughout the play. Ophelia is Hamlet’s girlfriend who becomes distraught when Hamlet rejects her love and even kills her father. She kills herself by falling into a brook and drowning. After questioning Ophelia and different possible outcomes in the end, Klein gets into depth with the play. The writer lets the audience know that Shakespeare never did show any real romance between Ophelia and Hamlet, except for the few moments of Ophelia being a beautiful lower class citizen…show more content… She says in her article, that Ophelia is “young woman struggling against the alienation, imprisonment, and hypocrisy associated with what Yu Jin Ko aptly describes as the "cultural landscape of hostile corporate takeovers.” Ophelia is the most identifiable, relatable, and understanding of all the Shakespeare heroines. In this article, Rooks mainly tells of the connection between Ophelia and cultural pressure on young girls. She mentions of how innocent Ophelia looks in her “blank white dress,” but then contrasts that appearance of purity by saying that her wild side gives a feeling of uncertainty and madness, almost like that of a “victim of rape.” Her innocence shows her naivety against the contrast of Hamlets “inky and scholarly black.” Apparently the flowers that surround Ophelia at her death resemble her “participation in deflowering,” symbolizing as the death or loss of innocence. After the initial analysis, Rooks then compares the original Hamlet to some plays she has seen. She mentions that Ophelia is kept in “distinctly feminine and often sexually suggestive costuming,” in the most popular films and films, but that she prefers Almereyda’s Hamlet. In Almereyda’s Hamlet, Rooks portrays Ophelia as a deranged girl driven into sadness and even madness due to society’s intentions and the betrayal of her love. Rooks thinks that Almereyda’s Hamlet is the perfect representation of Ophelia, and encourages audiences to look and see in different ways and understand that what is on the outside may be different than who they really are. The last comment of Rooks is: “Rather than trivializing Ophelia by means of focusing exclusively on her beauty, purity, hysteria, or sexuality, Almereyda highlights the complexities and contradictions in her character that render her, much like Hamlet, elusive yet ‘real,’ conflicted yet politically potent.” Ophelia will never be