Was Ophelia Ever There At All

Was Ophelia ever really there? I was suddenly struck yesterday that you could easily argue that this picture here, which I had just put up on my recent post about Ophelia because it's mildly interesting looking, gets to a potent point of the absence of the actual Ophelia.

Ophelia allowed her father to control her, then she went mad, and then she died off-stage. Where was Ophelia, and Ophelia's mind and will, in any of this?  It's almost like all there was to her was innocence, maidenhood, death by drowning, and her not being there and in control in any of the crucial moments of her life and death throughout everything we see of her in the play.

The Interesting Characters of Merchant of Venice

Antonio- He recently made my list of fictional characters I’d like to give a hug to. His generosity to his friends, especially Bassanio, knows no bounds. He also knows something about the other sort of charity too, seeing that he did give Shylock a much more merciful outcome in the courtroom than anyone else there seemed to want to (well, I’m not sure about Bassanio), despite the fact that he despised Jews, and considering what Shylock wanted to do to him.Some people see their friendship as being homosexual, though I certainly prefer the homosociality explanation

Bassanio- Bassanio seems like a rather unremarkable fellow. He does have the good luck to have a good friend and to win a good wife, but I’m inclined to disapprove him. He wasted an awful lot of money, and  he also declares near the end that he’d rather give up all he has, including his wife, and all that he doesn’t have in order to save Antonio’s life. Friendship, I approve of, but that’s not you should declare in a public courtroom.

Gratiano- Nerissa’s husband annoyed me. I mean, it was a little funny to have Shylock’s praise of Portia as a second Daniel turned back on him, but he was still a highly prejudiced and unmerciful person.

Jessica- She’s the daughter of Shylock, but she treated him in a rather heartless fashion, eloping with someone of a religion that her father hated, and stealing a large amount of wealth as she did so. One interesting thing I noticed about her is that when she was talking to Launcelot she spoke largely in prose, but sometimes she speaks in iambic pentameter (such as when she’s telling the Lorenzo—the friend of Antonio and Bassanio she elopes with—to catch the casket of the wealth she stole from her father) and at least once she spoke in a couplet “If thou keep promise, I shall end this strife, / Become a Christian and thy loving wife.”(Act II, Scene III, 20-21)

Launcelot- He was not quite the dashing knight of the Round Table. His character is a comic one, a servant of Shylock who  quits and works for Bassanio instead, and makes foolish remarks. He annoyed me.

Portia- I like Portia. She’s a strong, intelligent character and her describing her suitors from various countries was my favourite part of the play. She’s smart enough to save her husband’s best friends life, and then find a way to ensure that she took precedence in her husband’s priorities over his very close best friend.

Shylock- Despite the fact that Shylock shows no characteristics that make him likeable, and instead shows a highly disturbing desire to carve into a living human’s flesh, I do feel sorry for him. He was hated all through his life for being a Jew, and in the end he has to give up being a Jew to live. That robbed him of his identity, even though the rest of the conditions that came with it were more merciful than anything else he would have gotten.

If you've gotten to the end of this, congratulations. I know that when I have anything to say I say a lot. When it rains, it pours.