1. Visual Representations of Ophelia

2. Ophelia’s drowning Shakespeare describes Ophelia’s drowning in depth through Gertrude’s account. This detailed account has influenced artists for centuries. It has been said that no other image has entered so strongly into our cultural consciousness.

3. The image of the melancholic girl “… the death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world…” –Edgar Allen Poe, The Philosophy of Composition

11. What can be gained through an artistic representation of Ophelia’s death? In Elizabethan times, Ophelia’s drowning would have been understood as a result of her madness and hysteria: symptoms of the weaker sex. By recreating Ophelia’s scene of death, the artist allows us to reconsider Ophelia’s suicide and her agency in the play. Ophelia is a character whose identity was constantly developed against the male figures in her life. These artistic representations ask us to reconsider her identity.

12. Our questions: Is Ophelia’s suicide a testament to her surrender to her oppressive environment, or is it evidence of Ophelia’s attempt to give herself an independent identity? Is Ophelia’s death evidence of her own sense of power and conviction? How do you believe these artists have interpreted her situation?

13. Art and the feminist lens allows us to view Ophelia through a different perspective Pay attention to the representation of her environment. Is it aggressive, is it welcoming? Look at the positioning of her body, her facial expression, etc.

14. John Everett Millais, Ophelia (1852)

15. Eugene Delacroix, La Mort d’Ophelie (1844)

16. Cabanel Alexandre, Ophelia (1883)

17. W.G. Simmonds, The Drowning of Ophelia (1910)

18. Gregory Crewdson, Untitled (Ophelia), 2001

19. Hyle by Erik Odijk (2006)

20. Anne Wenzel, Ophelia, (2009) (wall paintings & sculptures)