Character Meme: Ophelia

Strap yourselves in kids, this is hella long. 

How I feel about this character

WHAT A GREAT AND TOTALLY UNAPPRECIATED CHARACTER HOLY SHIT.

LIKE JUST HOLY SHIT. 

A lot of my feelings are going to go in the ~unpopular opinions~ section because I have this theory I have adopted about Ophelia that I cannot be disuaded from.

But she’s - you gotta feel sorry for this girl. She’s what? 16? 18? And she’s found herself in the center of all this court intrigue. She’s in love with the prince, so she doesn’t really want to go and ruin that, but at the same time she’s loyal to her father and her king. She has an emotional connection with almost all the major players, but she has absolutely zero agency. 

The Kozintsev ffilm version has a great way of representing it, and I wish I could find a clip, the whole film used to be on youtube damn it. Throughout the film, Ophelia’s clothes grow increasingly harsh and binding (higher collars, more corsets and layers and shit, etc.) When Ophelia learns that her father has died, instead of wearing what she does in most adaptations - some sort of white nightgown-esque thing - she’s in this absurdly complicated and restricting dress. The petticoat or whatever you call that looks like a steel cage. It’s chilling. 

AND, SPEAKING AS SOMEONE WHO HAS WATCHED THE KEY OPHELIA SCENES IN LITERALLY EVER EXISTING FILM VERSION, I really don’t like how weak and willowy and infantile a lot of actresses play Ophelia. I feel like she’s got more weight to her than that. 

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Ophelia/Hamlet, I guess, but mostly if they’re tragic lesbians. Then it really becomes a ship I can get behind.

Also sometimes Ophelia/Gertrude a little don’t judge me ok. 

My non-romantic OTP for this character

I really like the relationship she has with Laertes, though we only witness it very briefly. Poor kiddies, they seem like a great brother/sister duo. 

My unpopular opinion about this character

I DONT THINK SHE WENT MAD.

OKAY SO HERE’S WHY. 

Like previously mentioned, Ophelia has zero agency in the play. She’s the daughter of an advisor, who’s now died. She doesn’t get to say jack shit. 

But she’s been hanging around court, and around Hamlet in particular, to, I think, piece together exactly what’s going on. That Claudius killed Old Hamlet to get at the throne and Gertrude, that Hamlet pretended to go mad (jilting her in the process) in order to plot his revenge and, as a consequence, ended up killing her father. 

With that in mind, let’s look at some shit in Ophelia’s “mad scene” (Act 4, scene 5). If you’ve read the play, this is when she goes around singing “snatches of old lauds” and throwing flowers at bitches. But what flowers, exactly?

(to Laertes)

There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray,/

love, remember: and there is pansies. that’s for thought. ..

There’s fennel for you, and columbines: there’s rue/

for you; and here’s some for me: we may call it /

herb-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: they say he made a good end - /

Okay, breaking that shit down. In the language of flowers, rosemary, like the lady says, is for remembrance. Pansies don’t have a lot of truck in flower language, so we’ll go with them meaning “thoughts” like she says. 

Now, fennel equals flattery and deceit. Rue is for regret. Daisies mean innocence, loyal love, purity, and faith. And violets mean faithfulness.

So what’s she saying to her brother here? I parse it like this: “Hey Laertes, remember who killed our father. Remember that, and use your regret at your ability to prevent it to make a difference in this situation. And who’re you going to trust about who’s responsible - those deceitful fucks over there, or your innocent and loyal sister? Be loyal to me, and to our father.” 

And I had a lot more information about this, and a much more sophisticated mapping out of the whole thing, but that gives you the gist. Ophelia’s showing her hand. She’s saying, the jig is up, all three of you (Gertrude, Laertes, and Claudius.) 

It’s my personal opinion that she pulls a Hamlet, puts on an “antic disposition,” and uses a language that would be appropriate for a lady of her standing to use and that anyone raised in the court would know to communicate to Laertes that he has to take revenge on Hamlet for her.  This is how she obtains some sort of agency, by having her brother carry out what actions she can’t. 

BUT THATS A PRETTY FUCKING CRACKY THEORY JFC. 

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

This one, unlike the Hamlet one, I can answer pretty easily - I wish we had actually seen the scene in which she dies. Because, if you read the actual text, it’s pretty fuzzy as to how exactly she died. Which is to say, not the cause of death, but why she fell into the river and drowned. 

Here’s Gertrude’s monologue on the matter: 

There is a willow grows aslant a brook,

That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;

There with fantastic garlands did she come

Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples

That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,

But our cold maids do dead men’s fingers call them:

There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds

Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;

When down her weedy trophies and herself

Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;

And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:

Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;

As one incapable of her own distress,

Or like a creature native and indued

Unto that element: but long it could not be

Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,

Pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay

To muddy death.

See, here, it’s not really explicitly clear that it’s suicide, though it’s certainly a possibility, and a pretty likely one. But, this isn’t something Gertrude saw, this is a second or third or even fourth hand account relayed to Gertrude that she’s repeating. We do not witness her death.

I mean, for the purposes of the play, we shouldn’t, but I’d still like to know what actually happened. 

dduane: nothing-rhymes-with-ianto: tericrab: rizzuwizzu: colinception: prnd: Keeping this… forever… Excuse me as I copy this down. :o I needed this in my life so badly it’s not even funny  For all my writer and English-loving friends.  uwu reference  Awesome Oh, please, dear Goddess in Heaven, NO. NONONONONONONONONONO. This is the latest incarnation of a dreadful thing called the SaidBook. It has been around for generations. IT IS THE WORST THING, the SINGLE WORST THING, a writer can stoop to. Using a saidbook is the quickest way to prove you’re a dilettante,  a parvenu — someone who is never really going to be a writer even at the amateur level — as exists anywhere on the planet. Saidbooking is a byword in the publishing industry, and among working writers everywhere, for laziness and/or cluelessness in the art of writing. You do not have to keep picking an alternative to “said.” The purpose of the word “said” in prose is to fade into the background and leave the dialogue to do the work.  The gift of writing, the thing all of us work hardest at from the moment we get started to the moment we expire over our typewriters or computers, is to make the dialogue itself tell how your character is saying something. If you need an alternative to make the emotion or context plain: you screwed up your dialogue somehow. GO BACK AND FIX IT SO THAT THE DIALOGUE ITSELF MAKES PLAIN HOW THE CHARACTER WAS SPEAKING. “She orated”? “He brought forth”?? YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME. It’s only a step from this to “‘Good morning,’ he pole-vaulted.” (This being one of the most famous and widely-derided versions.) If you’re thinking of ever selling professionally? Editors will see this stuff and push your manuscript aside. If you’re thinking of just writing well? Using a list like this is like having strong sound legs to start with, and then deciding that crutches might suit you better. NONONONONONONONO. There is maybe one acceptable alternative to “said”: “whispered”. Very, very occasionally, “screamed”. NOTHING ELSE. (“Thought” is OK, but thinking something is not saying something.) Really, people. Really. Saidbooks are poison. AVOID THEM. Make the dialogue do your work. Don’t use crutches. A fucking men. I should’ve said this the first time someone put this baby on my dash, but this is like one of the biggest no-nos. This is the sort of shit I was encouraged to do when I was writing shitty Harry Potter fanfic when I was twelve. If you feel like this is a good plan, I’d encourage you to read On Writing by Stephen King. That might come off as sort of rude, the way I’m saying it? But I’m just suggesting it because, even if you don’t like King’s shit, it has a lot of practical advice on shit not to do, re: words for dialogue tags and also stuff like adverbs.  It’s all right to throw in the occasional “whispered” or “added” here and there, as the situation demands, but if your dialogue does not convey that the words were grumbled or grinned or yelled or scoffed, then you need to rewrite your dialogue. Let your characters speak for themselves, this sort of stunt just distracts from the actual dialogue.  Okay sorry, let’s just take some shit I’ve written, which I’m not trying to say is good, but just for like example’s sake. Here’s my original version:  “I wonder how big of a rocket I can make,” says Vriska.  “Looking to do a tour of the Veil?” “Might as well,” she says. You grab her hand and squeeze it tight.  She’s looking off into nowhere like she can see for forever. “I know,” you say. “I can’t sugarcoat it for you, I know. It’s horrible.” “There’s a way out,” she says. “There’s always a way out.”  You kiss the spot right under her ear. There’s a little scar there, you wonder if anyone else in all of existence has ever known that about Vriska Serket.  “I always win,” she says. And here’s my version without once using the word “said” or, in this case, “says:”  “I wonder how big of a rocket I can make,” comments Vriska.  “Looking to do a tour of the Veil?” you query. “Might as well,” she muses. You grab her hand and squeeze it tight.  She’s looking off into nowhere like she can see for forever. “I know,” you observe. “I can’t sugarcoat it for you, I know. It’s horrible.” “There’s a way out,” she responds. “There’s always a way out.”  You kiss the spot right under her ear. There’s a little scar there, you wonder if anyone else in all of existence has ever known that about Vriska Serket.  “I always win,” she vows. I don’t know, I feel like the second one is clearly the weaker version. The attempt to convey the emotion of the ladies through dialogue tags detracts from what they’re actually saying and, I feel, pulls the reader out of what’s intended to be a melancholy scene, and the punchline to the story. 
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dduane:

nothing-rhymes-with-ianto:

tericrab:

rizzuwizzu:

colinception:

prnd:

Keeping this… forever…

Excuse me as I copy this down. :o

I needed this in my life so badly it’s not even funny 

For all my writer and English-loving friends.  uwu

reference 

Awesome

Oh, please, dear Goddess in Heaven, NO. NONONONONONONONONONO.

This is the latest incarnation of a dreadful thing called the SaidBook. It has been around for generations.

IT IS THE WORST THING, the SINGLE WORST THING, a writer can stoop to.

Using a saidbook is the quickest way to prove you’re a dilettante,  a parvenu — someone who is never really going to be a writer even at the amateur level — as exists anywhere on the planet.

Saidbooking is a byword in the publishing industry, and among working writers everywhere, for laziness and/or cluelessness in the art of writing. You do not have to keep picking an alternative to “said.” The purpose of the word “said” in prose is to fade into the background and leave the dialogue to do the work. 

The gift of writing, the thing all of us work hardest at from the moment we get started to the moment we expire over our typewriters or computers, is to make the dialogue itself tell how your character is saying something. If you need an alternative to make the emotion or context plain: you screwed up your dialogue somehow. GO BACK AND FIX IT SO THAT THE DIALOGUE ITSELF MAKES PLAIN HOW THE CHARACTER WAS SPEAKING.

“She orated”? “He brought forth”?? YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME. It’s only a step from this to “‘Good morning,’ he pole-vaulted.” (This being one of the most famous and widely-derided versions.)

If you’re thinking of ever selling professionally? Editors will see this stuff and push your manuscript aside. If you’re thinking of just writing well? Using a list like this is like having strong sound legs to start with, and then deciding that crutches might suit you better.

NONONONONONONONO.

There is maybe one acceptable alternative to “said”: “whispered”. Very, very occasionally, “screamed”. NOTHING ELSE. (“Thought” is OK, but thinking something is not saying something.)

Really, people. Really.

Saidbooks are poison. AVOID THEM.

Make the dialogue do your work. Don’t use crutches.

A fucking men.

I should’ve said this the first time someone put this baby on my dash, but this is like one of the biggest no-nos. This is the sort of shit I was encouraged to do when I was writing shitty Harry Potter fanfic when I was twelve.

If you feel like this is a good plan, I’d encourage you to read On Writing by Stephen King. That might come off as sort of rude, the way I’m saying it? But I’m just suggesting it because, even if you don’t like King’s shit, it has a lot of practical advice on shit not to do, re: words for dialogue tags and also stuff like adverbs. 

It’s all right to throw in the occasional “whispered” or “added” here and there, as the situation demands, but if your dialogue does not convey that the words were grumbled or grinned or yelled or scoffed, then you need to rewrite your dialogue.

Let your characters speak for themselves, this sort of stunt just distracts from the actual dialogue. 

Okay sorry, let’s just take some shit I’ve written, which I’m not trying to say is good, but just for like example’s sake.

Here’s my original version: 

“I wonder how big of a rocket I can make,” says Vriska. 

“Looking to do a tour of the Veil?”

“Might as well,” she says.

You grab her hand and squeeze it tight.  She’s looking off into nowhere like she can see for forever.

“I know,” you say. “I can’t sugarcoat it for you, I know. It’s horrible.”

“There’s a way out,” she says. “There’s always a way out.” 

You kiss the spot right under her ear. There’s a little scar there, you wonder if anyone else in all of existence has ever known that about Vriska Serket. 

“I always win,” she says.

And here’s my version without once using the word “said” or, in this case, “says:” 

“I wonder how big of a rocket I can make,” comments Vriska. 

“Looking to do a tour of the Veil?” you query.

“Might as well,” she muses.

You grab her hand and squeeze it tight.  She’s looking off into nowhere like she can see for forever.

“I know,” you observe. “I can’t sugarcoat it for you, I know. It’s horrible.”

“There’s a way out,” she responds. “There’s always a way out.” 

You kiss the spot right under her ear. There’s a little scar there, you wonder if anyone else in all of existence has ever known that about Vriska Serket. 

“I always win,” she vows.

I don’t know, I feel like the second one is clearly the weaker version. The attempt to convey the emotion of the ladies through dialogue tags detracts from what they’re actually saying and, I feel, pulls the reader out of what’s intended to be a melancholy scene, and the punchline to the story. 

Source: imgfave

My Great Big Sylvia Plath Post

So in case you didn’t know (which you probably didn’t because you are not a huge creepy fan like me) today is the 49th anniversary of Sylvia Plath’s death. So I’m going to allow myself one super indulgent Sylvia Plath post, and then move on with my life.

Sylvia Plath’s death is often what she’s most remembered for, which is a shame. Yes, she killed herself when she was thirty, and yes, that was a tragedy. Let me let her daughter do the talking. Take it away, Frieda: 

I did not want my mother’s death to be commemorated as if it had won an award. I wanted her life to be celebrated, the fact that she had existed, lived to the fullness of her ability, been happy and sad, tormented and ecstatic, and given birth to my brother and me. I think my mother was extraordinary in her work, and valiant in her efforts to fight the depression that dogged her throughout her life. She used every emotional experience as if it were a scrap of material that could be pieced together to make a wonderful dress; she wasted nothing of what she felt, and when in control of those tumultuous feelings she was able to focus and direct her incredible poetic energy to great effect. 

My first exposure to Sylvia Plath was through the kids who were part of my literary magazine in high school. They were, and are, the center of my best memories from high school, and they exposed me to a lot of media that I otherwise would have likely never seen or read - Chuck Palhinuk, Sandman and the oeuvre of Neil Gaiman, Watchman, Audition, Vampire Weekend, Animal Collective (I officially liked Animal Collective before they were super cool, ok?), and many other things. 

One of the girls on the lit mag staff had cassettes of the recordings of Sylvia Plath reading her poems, and she’d play them over and over again while she and a few others painted posters in the hallway. I didn’t recognize the the gravelly voice reciting poetry, but it was arresting. 

When we were practicing critiquing submissions, the editors read “I Am Vertical,” which begins

But I would rather be horizontal.

I am not a tree with my root in the soil

Sucking up my minerals and motherly love

So that each March I may gleam into leaf … 

and after that it was pretty much over for me. 

Fifteen is a good age to get into Plath, because her oft dark and depressing imagery mixes well with the natural angst of a teenage girl. For a while I was afraid that my affection for her work would fade as I aged, but so far, so good. 

Pre-Plath I had found most of the poetry I read to be maudlin’, corny, soft and unpalatable. After I read Ariel, I suddenly got it, why people respected and loved this medium so much. The power of just the right line break, the right turn of phrase. How a title can make or break a poem. The beauty of brevity. The weight of a comma. The use of repetition. Here, look: 

Love, love, the low smokes roll 

From me like Isadora’s scarves, I’m in a fright

(stanza break)

One scarf will catch and anchor in the wheel. 

Such yellow sullen smokes

Make their own element. They will not rise,

(stanza break)

But trundle round the globe

Choking the aged and the meek, 

The weak

(stanza break)

Hothouse baby in its crib,

The ghastly orchid

Hanging its hanging garden in the air … 

See how each line rolls to the next so smoothly? How she uses when she breaks her stanzas not to organize one grouping of thoughts or one metaphor away from the others but to emphasize certain words? 

SP is the reason I ever started writing poetry in the first place. Whether or not that’s actually a good thing or not remains to be seen. Her grubby fingers are all over my poems.  I would show some examples, but the best examples of me apeing her style were from my senior year of high school/ freshman year of college and oh God no. 

Anyway, I’ll leave you with some stuff you should check out: 

The BBC Sylvia Plath poetry recordings, in which you can hear her excellent reading voice and can learn a lot about how she saw her own poems. Also, then you can curse Gwenyth Paltrow for her weak ass whispery reading of the end of “Lady Lazarus” at the beginning of the biopic for SP, since SP actually reads it sort of wryly? 

The poems Poetry Magazine has of hers on their site.

The biopic Sylvia, which has Gwenyth Paltrow as Plath, which is something I am of two minds about. On the other hand, you can get the whole thing on Youtube, and Daniel Craig is Ted Hughes so hey. 

And some poems to get you started: 

Daddy

Lady Lazarus

Morning Song 

Vanity Fair

A Birthday Present

Fever 103

Elm 

boxofmiracles: and what about putting the period inside the quotes, and using proper quotaton marks instead of apostrophes THE MADNESS WILL IT EVER CEASE To be fair, in some countries, use of single quotes (or apostrophes) and punctuation outside of quotation marks is common? I copyedited some stuff from Australia, and it was all like that, and consistently from one writer to another, mostly. So.  Sorry I just killed the funny. 
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boxofmiracles:

and what about putting the period inside the quotes, and using proper quotaton marks instead of apostrophes

THE MADNESS

WILL IT EVER CEASE

To be fair, in some countries, use of single quotes (or apostrophes) and punctuation outside of quotation marks is common? I copyedited some stuff from Australia, and it was all like that, and consistently from one writer to another, mostly. So. 

Sorry I just killed the funny. 

(via littlelionfish)

Source: iraffiruse

Okay, time to liven up the fucking discourse in the Sylvia Plath tag. 

The Hanging Man

By the roots of my hair some god got hold of me.

I sizzled in his blue volts like a desert prophet.

The nights snapped out of sight like a lizard’s eyelid: 

A world of bald white days in a shadeless socket.

A vulturous boredom pinned me in this tree. 

If he were I, he would do what I did. 

More Plath, for Your Edification.

You’re  

Clownlike, happiest on your hands,

Feet to the stars, and moon-skulled,

Gilled like a fish. A common-sense

Thumbs-down on the dodo’s mode.

Wrapped up in yourself like a spool,

Trawling your dark as owls do.

Mute as a turnip from the Fourth

of July to All Fool’s Day,

O high-riser, my little loaf.

Vague as fog and looked for like mail.

Farther off than Australia.

Bent-backed Atlas, our travelled praw.

Snug as a bud and at home

Like a sprat in a pickle jug.

A creel of eels, all ripples.

Jumpy as a Mexican bean.

Right, like a well-done sum.

A clean slate, with your own face on. 

It makes me sad that when people quote Sylvia Plath they usually only quote:

1. a couple of specific passages from The Bell Jar

2. Something from “Daddy,” “Fever 103,” or “Lady Lazarus.” And it’s usually “Lady Lazarus.”

3. a couple of specific passages from The Unabridged Journals

and they usually skip over all of the clever turns of phrase and really just guttingly powerful imagery some of the poems and journal entries have, in exchange for quoting and requoting and quoting admittedly good passages until they’re worn away into nothing but patches of maudlin sentimentality. 

and some really great poems, like “Black Rook in Rainy Weather” or “Elm” or “Vanity Fair” get skipped over for the three thousandth repetition of “I am, I am, I am” 

a very impurrtant pouncellor: chorionics: meowgon: chorionics: clumsyoctopus: chorionics: jake would...

chorionics:

megaparsecs:

chorionics:

meowgon:

chorionics:

clumsyoctopus:

chorionics:

jake would call people old sport

a lot

it gets old jake

it gets old

jake is jay gatsby

mom is daisy

bro is nick and is completely bemused by all this and thinks he’s better and also probably gay

jane…

Seriously, the everyone-in-Gatsby-is-gay thing is a real thing and a legit theory, and honestly you know when you read it the thought crossed your mind at least once.

i just assumed that’s cause i think that about every fictional character at least once

There have been serious scholarly papers about how Jordan and Daisy were totally doing it. 

(via fieldfoxes-deactivated20120310)

a very impurrtant pouncellor: chorionics: meowgon: chorionics: clumsyoctopus: chorionics: jake would...

chorionics:

meowgon:

chorionics:

clumsyoctopus:

chorionics:

jake would call people old sport

a lot

it gets old jake

it gets old

jake is jay gatsby

mom is daisy

bro is nick and is completely bemused by all this and thinks he’s better and also probably gay

jane…

Seriously, the everyone-in-Gatsby-is-gay thing is a real thing and a legit theory, and honestly you know when you read it the thought crossed your mind at least once.