Charell Arnold

Incapable of her own Distress: A look into Ophelia’s fall

            Within William Shakespeare’s Hamlet the character of Ophelia is one of the most puzzling; perhaps intentionally so.  Shakespeare chronicles Ophelia’s love and adoration for the distracted Prince Hamlet as well as the circumstances of her father’s murder by this same Prince she once loved.  However, Ophelia’s tragic life abruptly ends in Act 4, Scene 7 with an announcement from the Queen that she has drowned.  Thus with her death begins the true puzzle of Ophelia’s life.  The only information the audience receives about her sudden end comes from the Queen, as Ophelia’s death is staged entirely offstage and outside the realm of the play- hence there is no scene where the viewer may see for himself what actually takes place.  Instead, we are left to question the exact circumstances behind Ophelia’s death: namely, was it an accident, a suicide or something altogether different? 

            To look to the text itself (all of which is imparted by the Queen though it is never revealed how the Queen knows the circumstances of Ophelia’s death) we may find contradictory language to the notion of suicide as a voluntary act.  Instead, the Queen explains the girl’s fate by stating that “down her weedy trophies and herself / Fell in the weeping brook.” (IV.vii.172-73). The word fall, or fell as used here, holds a connotation of the accidental or unintentional.  While one could walk or jump or wade into a brook, Shakespeare chooses for Ophelia to fall.  Looking to the Oxford English Dictionary, we may find that fell may mean “to cut, knock, or strike down (a man or animal)”(1) as well as the more traditional in modern context, “to cause to stumble; to trip up.” (4).  These definitions too impart a sense of unawares to her circumstances as Ophelia floated in the brook before being gradually pulled down.  

            It cannot be clear exactly what happened to Ophelia, however, the use of the word fell to describe her descent into the brook, as well as the curious way in which the audience is informed of her death both hint at something more than the classic interpretation of a young girl’s grief-stricken suicide.  Instead, directly following in Act 5, Scene 1, we learn from two gravediggers that Ophelia is to be given a Christian burial as if “the water come to him and drown him, he drowns not himself” (V.i.17-18), thus cementing a façade of the accidental over Ophelia’s death.