"Piece of bait"/"the

object"/"O-phallus"
are all
extraordinarily
cringeworthy
descriptions,
definitely not an
indicator that
Lacan held any
sort of respect for
her as a woman or
a character
 Calling
Ophelia’s story
But do we have a the Story of
responsibility nothingness
towards her? seems slightly
Although diminuitive,
Shakespeare is after all the
obviously one of absence of
the most thought or
influential sexuality has
literary figures of weight on it’s
all time, does own. It isn’t just
that mean ‘nothingness’
Ophelia
specifically must Interesting
be turned into all idea, I agree
these different that when
archetypes? Hamlet yells
When is a at Ophelia it
character just a does give off
character? a vibe of self-
loathing and
projection

Examining the portrayal of Ophelia through different

time periods and lenses rather than Ophelia herself is
a very smart way of dodging the lack of actual Ophelia-
related content. (and is arguably more interesting)
 Why only
English
and
French?

What. I sort of
understand what
he’s getting at,
but the idea of
gendering ways
of death is
honestly … sort
of laughable. It’s
just, the whole
Women Give
Birth And Also
Once again, going back to the whole "when is a character just a Make Milk —>
character." Is Ophelia’s emblematic significance another product of Drowning is a
people attempting to put women into easily characterizable boxes? Female Coded
Death?? Also.
"Beautiful
Immersion In the
female
element"? No.
Stop it.

Hm. I wonder why the "intellectual and imaginative

genius" juSt haPpened to bypass women…
 More raw portrayal
of grief and madness
is pretty much in line
with what I’ve come
to expect from the
romantic era (the
embracement of
Ophelia’s madness
is something I
personally love to
see rather than
shying away from
the topic)

Interesting how
color plays such
an important role
in the portrayal
and perception
of Ophelia.

Shrinking
Ophelia’s
character into
a literal
sidepiece is
definitely not
surprising,
but
depressing
nonetheless
 Christian imagery

I think part of
the reason
why Ophelia
(specifically
Ophelia’s
death) has so
many different
interpretations
is because it’s
entirely
offscreen so
there isn’t
much
canonical
material to
dispute
peoples
portrayals of
the event
 Is this true, or
is it them
projecting their
biases onto
their
patients? :/

Yup, looks like

bias plays some
part in here. It’s
interesting how
portrayals of
Ophelia have
managed to
seep into actual
manifestations
of madness.
Also, I wonder
whether this
‘stereotype’ of Once again, Ophelia seems like an easy target for projection
sorts was every because she lacks canonical development.
weaponized and
used to
discredit certain
voices (e.g.
xyz’s abc
resembles
Ophelia,
therefore they
must be mad)
 Yes! finally!
Ophelia
portrayed
as a normal
person!

Interesting how
associating
Ophelia with
symbols of purity
is also used to
strip her of her
characterization.

This is not unique to Ophelia. Many female characters (including but not
limited to Sakura from Naruto of all people) have been somewhat
‘demonized’ for not playing a large enough part or not doing enough.
Ironically, most of the criticisms of these ‘useless’ female characters
seem to ignore that they weren’t created in a vacuum, that their
‘uselessness’ was written or drawn into this world by an author
Interesting but slightly unrelated note on the Freudian
psychology bit, there has been some discourse on whether
the origins of Freudian psychology actually came from
stories of people who had been sexually assaulted by their
parents as youths, which does provide an interesting
framing device when looking at Ophelia as someone who NICE
seems to mirror Hamlet’s Freudian turmoil

This paragraph really outlines how there is this weird lingering

obsession with turning Ophelia into the ultimate symbol of
feminine madness. Give the poor girl a break and let Carrie
take on that role or something.
I agree with this
insight, that there
is no "true"
Ophelia. How she
is portrayed
simply becomes a
good way to
measure the
attitudes of
people towards
non-conventional
women at that
period in time.