Advance English midterm 邱月亭 Ophelia and madness 邱月亭 1

Ophelia in the play 邱月亭 Ophelia can’t control herself in family domain and in social order. She is both Hamlet’s desire body and abject subject. Her value is less than a female body. 2

Ophelia in the play 邱月亭 3 But her existence is important in art, literature and in even psychotherapy, so first I want to discuss Ophelia’s image on the stage, did people this role in different centuries with different kinds of personality? From reader to audience, I just note something I find, interesting but not completely, I hope this is a start to understand the relationship between Ophelia and mad women.

Ophelia in English stage 邱月亭 From 1660, when women first appeared on the public stage to the beginning of the eighteenth century, Ophelia almost be played whom rumor credited with disappointments in love. But her lines were frequently cut in censorship, and the role who often be played by singer instead of actress, making the mode of representation musical rather than visual avoid stimulating to the audience. 4

Ophelia in English stage 邱月亭 19 century, Ellen Terry, for example, played Ophelia like a girl terrified of her father, of her lover, and of life itself. And she was the first to challenge the tradition of Ophelia’s dressing in white. 20 century, Ophelia means various possibilities. 1. Trevor Nunn 2. Marianne Faithfull 3. Jonathan Miller 4. Melissa Murray 5

Hysteria and Ophelia 邱月亭 Dr. John Charles Bucknill remarked ‘Ophelia is the very type of cases by no means uncommon.’ In 1850, Dr. Hugh Welch Diamond firstly used camera to asylum work in England. He took female patient pictures (figure 1), and he influenced deeply by Ophelia’s posture, for example, his patients in picture 1 weared with Ophelia-like garlands and in white dress. 6

Figure 1, Dr. Hugh Welch Diamond, Inmates of Surrey County Asylum (1852)

Hysteria and Ophelia 邱月亭 Jean-Martin Charcot said the hospital is a ‘living theatre’ of his hysterical patients. Their performance is exaggerate, and they sometimes even play heroine of Shakespeare’s play. (figure 2) 8

Figure 2, R. Regnard, photograph of Augustine, Iconographique de la Salpetriere, 1878

Hysteria and Ophelia 邱月亭 In 1990, Freud had traced Hamlet’s irresolution to an Oedipus complex, Ernst Jones developed this view and influenced other performance in 1930’s. Theodor Lidz thought Ophelia’s Electra complex: although Ophelia has fantasies to have one lover who can abduct her and kill her father, but when this is actually happens, her guilt and incestuous feelings let her can’t shift her sexual attachment from her father to a man who can make her to be a woman. 10

Hysteria and Ophelia 邱月亭 11 In 1960’s, R.D.Laing argued that schizophrenic was a double binds experienced by daughters, and he think Ophelia is an empty, there is no integral selfhood, incomprehensible statements are said nothing, she already died, there is now only a vacuum where there was once a person.

To be continued 邱月亭 12 We see different Ophelia in different history, her madness can connect with love or other things in different time, Ophelia also from fiction woman became a real-like woman, this is very interesting but I still need find more information to arrange more detail about Ophelia.

Reference 邱月亭 13 Shakespeare, Hamlet, ed. Eighth Edition, Types of Drama: Plays and Context, New York: Longman, 2001, p Julia Reinhard Lupton and Kenneth Reinhard, After Oedipus: Shakespeare in psychoanalysis, New York: Cornell University,1993 Elaine Showalter, “Representing Ophelia: Women, Madness, and the Responsibilities of Feminist Criticism” Shakespeare and the Question of Theory, ed. Patricia Parker and Geoffrey Hartman, New York:Methuen,1985 Elaine Showalter, The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture, ,New York: Penguin Books,1985 Elaine Showalter 著，周芬清譯〈婦女，瘋狂與英國文化〉，《當代》六十九期， ， R.D.Laing 著，林和生、侯東民譯，《分裂的自我》，貴州，貴州人民出版社， 1994 彭鏡禧譯註 《哈姆雷》台北，聯經， 2001 彭鏡禧編 《發現莎士比亞：台灣莎學論述選集》台北，貓頭鷹， 2000 朱立民 《愛情. 仇恨. 政治－－漢姆雷特專論及其它》台北，三民， 1993 王溢嘉《精神分析與文學》台北，野鵝， 1980