The Expecting Ophelia

This interesting news became known through the play Hamlet written by William Shakespeare where he created a “What if” factor (Fuller). “Shakespeare did not specify every stage direction in his writings” (Fuller). This leaves the whole play up to interpretation of each audience. The fact that Ophelia is indeed pregnant, becomes one of the main examples of the “what if factor” in Hamlet (Soon).  Ophelia’s innocent character falls for the charming prince who once loved her, leading to her suicide, and to hide her pregnancy by the use of herbs and flowers.  

            Ophelia’s character is very young, naïve, and innocent, making it very easy for her to fall for Hamlet, Denmark’s prince. She is an “innocent girl in love with the doomed prince” (Epstein).  A women’s innocence in Elizabethan times is created by society’s expectations.  Ophelia in the story of Hamlet symbolizes innocence and purity because she is so young.  As she is getting older many things around her are trying to take her innocence and purity.  “Ophelia remains to the last epitome of fragile innocence and purity, out of place in the cruel and corrupt world of Elsinore” (Sadowski 154). Hamlet is Ophelia’s prince charming, both fall in love with each other, even though Hamlet knows she is actually not royalty.  He sings songs to her, writes her letters, and tells her sweet things to make her fall for him.  Ophelia was definitely flattered by Hamlet’s attention as she gives him a lot of alone time. Flattered by everything her mind was influenced easily by the men surrounding her (Soon).  “She is so young, that neither her mind nor her persons have attained maturity: she is not aware of the nature of her own feelings; they are prematurely developed in their full force before she has strength to bear them…” (Jameson).  Ophelia’s character becomes one that is stuck between what her heart is saying and what her father and brother is telling her to do.

            Polonius and Laertes constantly warn Ophelia to be careful and to protect her honor, but it is quite obvious that she and Hamlet have had a sexual relationship that lead to Ophelia being pregnant.  Both Polonius, Ophelia’s father, and Laertes, Ophelia’s brother, both were trying to convince Ophelia not to fall for prince Hamlet.  Laertes being about Hamlet’s age himself thinks although Hamlet is doing all these things for Ophelia, he really is playing her.  He says just see Hamlet’s actions as young flirtation nothing more.  “For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favors, / Hold it a fashion and a toy in the blood, / … No more.” (I. ii. 6-11). Although Ophelia says the relationship is completely innocent, Polonius doesn’t believe it because they have had a lot of alone time lately. The way her father “explicitly forbids further interaction gives the notion that men perhaps had, of the ‘frailty’ of the female mind when confronted with lust and desire” (Soon).  Laertes warns her that he may love her but he shall soon be king, so there cannot be a relationship between the two.  Also he warns her to fear believing his love songs because if she falls in love with him she will end up yielding her virginity (I. ii. 32-6).  Throughout this scene both her brother and father tell her to just deny Hamlet’s love it will be better for her. “…Keep her ‘chaste treasure’ and to ‘weigh what loss’ her ‘honor may sustain’” (Soon). But by the time Laertes and Polonius actually warned Ophelia it was too late her and Hamlet have already had their sexual relationship lead to her becoming pregnant. “… Quietly but firmly defied her father in the name of honesty, self-respect, and loyalty to her future husband” (Sadowski 202).

            Hamlet himself throughout the play gives his many hints to show he already know Ophelia is pregnant.  In Act II, scene ii, while Hamlet talks with Polonius he calls him a fish monger. “Do you know me lord?” “Excellent well. You are a fish monger” (II. ii.185-6).  By calling Ophelia’s father a fish monger he is really calling Ophelia a whore. “…’Fish monger’ supports this idea since it is an Elizabethan slang for a pimp” (Soon). He could only know that Ophelia was a whore if it was because of him. He only knows that she is dishonest though because he has done it (Epstein).  Later on in that same scene as Hamlet continues his talk with Polonius he gives another hint to Polonius that Ophelia is indeed pregnant.

Hamlet “For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, breing a good

kissing carrion Have you a daughter?” 

Polonius “I have my lord”

Hamlet “Let her not walki’th’sun. Conception is a blessing but as

your daughter may conceive friend, look to’t. (II. ii. 193-7)   

Hamlet is trying to be sly by using maggots as a metaphor for conception.  He talks about how a dead dog can breed maggots, and then Ophelia can also conceive easily as well.  Later in the play in Act III, Scene I, Hamlet begins to go crazy yelling at Ophelia. “Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst though bea / breeder of sinners?” Hamlet is telling Ophelia to get to a nunnery or Brothel which is another name for a whore house (Lady).  After going crazy and yelling at Ophelia he gives her some advice that’s very witty.

If thou dost marry, I’ll give thee this plague for thy

Dowry: be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt

Not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery, farewell. Or if

thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well

enough what monsters make of them. To a nunnery, go;

and quickly too. Farewell.  (III. i. 143-8)

In other words he says if you do marry, this advice will be the dowry he gives her. No matter how innocent people are you are also scandalous.  Marry a fool because wise men know better than to marry someone like you so get to a brothel quickly.  Hamlet almost is saying he will not marry her because she is scandalous.  She later attempts to give the gifts he gave her back saying, “Take these again; for the noble mind / Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind” (III. i. 109-10).  Now that Hamlet shows he no longer cares these gifts mean nothing to her, but Hamlet denies he ever gave them to her and denies taking them.  But Hamlet does admit, “I did love you once” (III, i, 123-4). Love you once can be taken as a pun, for he actually cared for once and also that he and her had sexual relations as well causing her to become pregnant.  “After the ‘nunnery’ shock as far as she is concerned their relationship, unfulfilled as it was, is over” (Sadowski 152).  

            Ophelia herself gives some of the biggest clues that she is pregnant through the songs she sings.  Most of them are about mourning her father’s death but one tends to talk about a maid being seduced perhaps she is trying to tell the truth.  

Tomorrow is St. Valentine's day
All in the morning bedtime
And I a maid at your window
To be your Valentine.

Then up he rose and donn'd his clothes
and dupp'd the chamber door;
Let in the maid, that out a maid
Never departed more. (IV. v. 50-7)

As she continues her songs we learn the real truth to what has happened between her and Hamlet.

Young men will do’t if they come to’t

By cock they are to blame.

Quoth she, ‘Before you tumbled me,

you promised me to wed.’ (IV. v. 63-5)

To where Hamlet replies with “So would I ha’done, by yonder sun, an thou hadst not come to my bed” (IV. iv. 67-8). Between their short conversations after her song we can infer that Hamlet seduced Ophelia and promised to marry her before she came to his bed and she got pregnant.

Throughout the play Hamlet, Ophelia’s death has the biggest symbolism behind proving she was pregnant.  There is many things affiliated with her death that help show she was expecting.  As a young girl Ophelia has gone through many things then most girls her age probably have not.  With all the events she has been distraught, drives herself to commit suicide as her form of death. “Ophelia talks as a woman trying to deal with a passive hostility for a former love” (Lady).  Hamlet her former boyfriend, not only goes crazy, he also becomes rude and mean to her, kills her father and is sent off to England; so her own sanity is gone after these events.  In order to preserve her honor that is left, and to hide the fact that she was pregnant she kills herself (Epstein).  We can conclude it actually was suicide because, “a girl who has been seduced and abandoned need fear nothing but a broken heart, provided there is no evidence of her shame” (Epstein).  Sense she did commit suicide it does give more symbolic meaning to her death.  The queen gives the account for how Ophelia did die. Ophelia was down by a brook climbing the tree to hang flowers when a branch broke to where she fell into the brook clothes and all which eventually became drenched and pulling her down to her death as she sang songs and held her flowers (IV. vii. 181-98). In Elizabethan times drowning became the preferred method of suicide for unmarried pregnant women (Lady). As an audience would see the play they would understand that drowning means she is pregnant (Lady).   

The biggest supporting evidence we learn about in the play that shows Ophelia is indeed pregnant is the flowers, which she passes out and has as she commits suicide. These herbs and flowers she holds give many symbolic meanings. In the court yard Ophelia begins to pass the herbs and flowers out to the people and herself. “And here’s some for me. We may call it the herb of grace o’ Sundays. You must wear your rue with a difference. There’s a daisy” (IV. v. 194-8).  The daisy symbolizes innocence. When she picks it up and puts it back down Ophelia means “there is no innocence here” (Eriksson). Implying she is no longer innocent and their society is becoming corrupt. As the queen describes Ophelia’s death she says, “…there with fantastic garlands did she come / of crow- flowers, nettles, daisies and long purples /…” (IV. vii. 183-4). “Elizabethan audiences would understand the flowers were used to abort the child” (Soon). When Gertrude talks about the flowers Ophelia dies with it, she especially means the rue. Rue has a few meanings, one is a “genuine repentance of all transgressions for women everlasting and suffering” (Eriksson). It can also symbolize regret and can be a powerful abortifacient. Herbal abortifacients tend to be used as mild poison for pregnancy and personal death. “The idea is that you poison yourself to the point where your body decided it is too sick to support a growing embryo or fetus and rejects it” (Epstein). “Presumably Shakespeare would have given Ophelia hemlock if she had intended to poison herself” (Epstein). Thus from the flowers Shakespeare gave Ophelia we can tell he meant for her to commit suicide and the flowers were used as an abortifacient to kill her baby.

    Although Shakespeare probably intended for his plays, like Hamlet, to have a “what if factor”, he also gave clues throughout the story to show what he did actually mean. Just like Ophelia is pregnant and committed suicide. Ophelia was just a young naïve girl who did not know better and was stuck between her heart and her mind.  She fell for prince Hamlet, who once loved her, but later caused her distraught. This became the reason behind her suicide to hide her pregnancy, for he no longer loved her, by the use of herbs and flowers.