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Fictionista, Foodie, Feline-lover

Showing posts with label Ophelia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ophelia. Show all posts

Thursday, June 5, 2014

Shakespeare Noir...The Sister's Story

Painting of Ophelia  by John Everett Millais
the character of Ophelia in Hamlet has always annoyed me. Not because I think the character is unrealistic--sadly, I've known a few too many Ophelias in my life--but because she's such a ninny. She lets her father and brother boss her around; she lets Hamlet mistreat her and then she kills herself.  She'd have lasted about a day and a half n Westeros. But what if...Ophelia wasn't the pliant little maid we all know, weaving circlets of rosemary and singing nonsense songs? What if she were an altogether different person?

The Sister's Story
by Katherine Tomlnison

Prince Hamlet had been away at university for almost a year when his father died.
Ironically, he was on the road home to Elsinore when news of his father’s illness reached him.
It was far too late for him to send his companion away, so when the prince arrived to find the court in mourning, his friend was thrown into the midst of the maelstrom along with him.
It was a peculiar situation.
The old king had died of a stomach ailment and even though the prince was of age, the title had passed to the king’s brother, Claudius instead of him.
Odder still, the prince’s newly widowed mother had already married her former brother-in-law.
When Hamlet’s friend Horatio remarked upon the somewhat unseemly haste of the nuptials, Hamlet rebuked him saying that he admired the economy of the measure, which allowed the kitchen to serve the funeral’s baked meats sliced cold at the marriage feast.
In truth, Hamlet cared little for the crown itself—he was a scholar, not a fighter, and Prince Fortinbras of Norway had often been known to mock him as “the student prince.” Claudius was rooted from more martial stock, and eager to send the Norwegian prince threatening our borders back to his own kingdom without tribute or treasure.
King Hamlet had favored diplomacy in dealing with the Norse-men, a policy Claudius had openly disdained.
As soon as he was king, Claudius ordered the Danish army to prepare for war. My brother Laertes was ordered back from Paris to lead the troops that would protect the land between the border and Elsinore. If Hamlet felt the slight of his uncle’s favor passing him by, he did not show it.
In fact, if he had any feelings at all, he did not express them—not to me, not to Horatio, and certainly not to the two fools who were his best friends at court, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
I was surprised that Hamlet did not turn to me; surprised and somewhat hurt.
We had been lovers since I turned 15 and it was commonly assumed that one day we would marry. My brother opposed this idea, mostly because he did not like the prince (Rosencrantz once joked that Laertes opposed the match and I had overheard Rosencrantz say that his objections were not because he disliked the prince, but that he liked him a little too much. Guildenstern had countered this witticism with an observation of his own suggesting that perhaps Laertes wanted to keep me for himself.
Both gibes had enraged my brother and vastly amused the court, fueling speculation that was not kind to Laertes.
My father was giddy with the possibility of my marrying the prince, despite his public protestations to the contrary. My father was a noble by birth, but a minor noble and despite his title of “Lord Chamberlain,” his function at court was as only slightly more important than that of the king’s Master of Hounds. Being father-in-law to the future king was a prospect that thrilled him.
And there was no doubt that Claudius would name Hamlet his heir. The king had no children of his own and Queen Gertrude was well past child-bearing age.
I’d always assumed Hamlet’s parents found me…adequate…as a potential mate for their son. I am a pretty woman from a noble family and really, all the only thing they really required of a princess bride was a brood mare of sufficiently impressive bloodstock that the royal spawn would not be born with a crooked back or a cloudy eye.