Ophelia

(2020)

There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray, love, remember; and there is pansies, that’s for thoughts... There’s fennel for you, and columbines; there’s rue for you, and here’s some for me; we may call it herb of grace o’ Sundays. O, you must wear your rue with a difference. There’s a daisy. I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died.
Lay her i’ th’ earth, And from her fair and unpolluted flesh, May violets spring!

(Shakespeare, Hamlet)

Shakespeare’s Ophelia has fascinated people’s imaginations for centuries and has been the subject of countless reinterpretations and artistic and cultural references. Among Ophelia’s intriguing qualities is the paradox of sane insanity. Surrounded by the lies and deception of those who deem her foolish in her madness, she speaks without inhibition, using the symbolic meanings of flowers to bring to light unsettling truths about other characters. Violets, a symbol of faithfulness and fidelity, seem to have “withered all away” as a reflection of this corruption, and are called to spring up from Ophelia’s “unpolluted flesh” after her tragic death—a seeming testament to her innocence. As her voice is drowned out, the flowers remain behind as vivid reminders of her perceptive words. Ironically, Ophelia appears to be the only lucid character in Hamlet, an unlikely bearer of truth who puts the supposedly sane characters to shame, much like Shakespeare’s wise fools.