Keep you in the rear of your affection

Unlike the romantic escapades of characters in his lighter, happier works, the romantic couples in Shakespeare’s tragedies often undergo a series of miserable and violent experiences which leave them broken and despondent before the play’s end. What’s more, along with many of their cast-mates, the lovers in Shakespeare’s tragic plays almost always meet with violent ends, murders or suicides either inspired by or at the hands of their estranged better half. Interestingly, it seems the female halves of these tragic romances are dealt the crueler hand, as the exploits of the protagonist they love throughout the play serve to destroy them psychologically or physically. Nowhere is this more true than in two of Shakespeare’s most famous tragedies, Othello and Hamlet, wherein the love interests of these two titular heroes are forced to deal with the murderous spite of their possessive partner or are saddled with mind-destroying rejection at the hand of an equally insane mate. More than just in their deaths, however, are the two females Ophelia and Desdemona paralleled across the two plays. In their obsessive and not-equally-requited loves for the two heroes, in their portrayal as naïve and hapless children within patriarchal societies, and in the cursory nature with which their violent deaths are treated by supporting characters, both Ophelia and Desdemona are cursed with the pinnacle of suffering and cruelty in Shakespeare.

At the outset of Othello, we see Iago and Roderigo expressing their dual contempt for the Moorish general, the former for the stifling of his military advancement and the latter for his involvement with Desdemona, the object of Roderigo’s affections. Their treatment of the lady throughout the play suggests they view her as an object of contention for men to compete for, something of a prize for which her various suitors might vie. Othello even confirms his subscription to this dichotomy with the simple and telling line, “I won his [Brabantio’s] daughter” (1.3.96)¹. Here, the men intend to use Desdemona’s romantic interests as a weapon against Othello, believing that they might use her father’s power and opposition to this union against the general for their own personal gain. Little consideration is given for Desdemona’s own feelings or choices as the pair inform her father Brabantio of her personal romantic activities, and the three grow in frustration and disgust as the truth comes to light, even invoking the possibility of legal action to put an end to it. When first summoning Brabantio to relay the shocking news of his daughter’s betrayal of his intentions, Iago lists her among possessions which might be stolen, shouting, “Thieves! Thieves! / Look to your house, your daughter, and your [money] bags! / Thieves! Thieves!” (1.1.79–81)¹. This, of course, objectifies the woman as her father’s property, a notion reinforced by the daughter herself in a later scene when she claims she is “bound [to Brabantio] for life and education” (1.3.182)¹ and even referring to both her father and to her husband repeatedly as her “lord” (1.3.184, 188)¹.

Despite the males’ perception of her as a piece of chattel to be won and controlled, Desdemona does in this scene demonstrate a semblance of agency suggesting her own motives and desires weigh heavier in her mind than do the intentions and instructions of male authorities in her life. However, even in her rejection of her father’s wishes for her in choosing to love Othello, she is presented in the text as filled with naïveté and childlike wonder, having been “won” by the general after being impressed by his relative worldliness and stories, which it is suggested might have been exaggerated or invented. In so doing, Shakespeare undermines the character’s agency and paints her as a hapless lover convinced of the general’s heroism by stories — or perhaps fantasies of “Anthropophagi, and men whose heads / Do grow beneath their shoulders” (1.3.145–146)¹ — recounted specifically and manipulatively to earn favor.

Similarly, Ophelia’s feelings toward Hamlet are presented as hopeless and short-sighted in her conversation with her brother Laertes in her first scene. Introducing the character and her flawed affections in tandem, Shakespeare renders Ophelia indivisible from her infantile romantic delusions, framing a fragile and vulnerable character whose assumptions serve to destroy her over the course of the play. Her brother foresees this trouble approaching, and suggests that she “keep [herself] in the rear of [her] affection” and not “lose [her] heart” with feelings for Hamlet which might prove fleeting (1.3.33, 30)². Despite the sibling camaraderie operating in this scene, the role of Laertes recommending that his sister not become carried away with her womanly affectations suggests a feminine weakness and fragility which persists throughout the play. It also demonstrates the power relationship inherent in Hamlet and Ophelia’s pseudo-romance, with Hamlet holding the emotional cards and the woman being subject to his whims and fancies.

As it happens, the contrasting expectations of men are what eventually drive Ophelia into madness and her subsequent demise. Torn between her affections for Hamlet, who at best views her as a sexual object and at worst outright rejects her, and the perception of her father and brother of her innocence and virginity, she is unable to resolve her dilemma and takes her own life. Her own suicide is indicative of her lack of pure characteristic agency and her fragility in the wake of a patriarchal culture’s demands, and the death represents her acquiescence to the unrealistic and impossible position of young women who found themselves in love during her time period. Eschewing the advice of her brother, she allows her affections to get the better of her and she is overcome with emotion. She drowns herself both literally and figuratively, sacrificing her free will to the depths of male domination and stifling her voice beneath the surface of patriarchy.

But what is most interesting about Ophelia’s death is not the mode, but the way in which her demise is communicated to the masculine characters and to the audience. In his article on the subject aptly entitled “The Death of Ophelia,” J.M. Nosworthy argues that “[t]he vital point is that Ophelia’s death […] is here presented as accidental” (345)³. Rather than the audience witnessing the events of her suicide unravel directly, Gertrude inexplicably is the medium through which the spectacle is related. What’s more, Gertrude did not even serve as witness to the drowning, but instead retells secondhand information — presumably provided by one of the men tasked with keeping tabs on Ophelia. Nosworthy emphasizes the detached nature through which this report is delivered:

He began with some detailed botanical observations, proceeded then to contemplate with interest the way in which Ophelia contrived to keep afloat, and finally lent an attentive ear to a recital of old tunes. And the incredible thing is that he apparently made no effort to rescue her (346)³.

Even more “incredible,” offers Nosworthy, is the nonchalant nature of Laertes’ reaction to the news. Whether Gertrude consciously presented the information this way in the interest of Laertes is open to debate, but in other scenes it is obvious that the characters are aware of her death actually being suicide — the clowns digging her grave even explicitly reference the fact that they know “she drowned herself” (5.1)². What is important is that her tragic demise is represented in some morbid game of telephone between characters completely uninvested in her interests, and that in the aftermath of her death characters are unconcerned with accuracy in reporting her actions or motivations. This is a further removal of her agency, rendering her incapable even of control of her own decisions as the tale of her demise is distorted into a sort of fiction, carried on even by her closest relatives, although it may not have been believed by the same.

In a not-too-dissimilar way, Othello suffers some delusions about Desdemona’s actions which eventually lead to her murder at his deranged hands. In an article by John Hodgson which focuses on the symbolic importance of Desdemona’s handkerchief, he asserts that “[f]or Othello, [one’s] reputation defines [their] essential character” and that “Othello trusts in appearances, in the mere trappings of character” (314)⁴. Because of these subtle character flaws, for Othello it would seem that reputation, character, and the surface appearances suggesting thereof are interchangeable and beyond corruption. In Iago’s words, Othello “thinks men honest that but seem to be so” (1.3.398)¹. Furthermore, Othello and the other characters in the play “regard the handkerchief as an emblem of reputation” (317)⁴ and therefore regard the perversion of that symbol as representative of infidelity and a squandering of her positive reputation. Its exchange between extramarital partners not only symbolizes a betrayal of her marriage contract but also a betrayal of her subscription to societal norms of decency and honesty.

This reading of humanity becomes the very fatal flaw which leads to the erosion of his romance at the manipulation of Iago and others and, subsequently to Desdemona’s eventual smothering. The handkerchief throughout Othello not only serves as a symbol of Desdemona’s innocent reputation but also of her marriage and love for her husband Othello, a fact of which Iago conspiratorially takes advantage. Since appearances can only denote reality, in Othello’s eyes the passage of Desdemona’s handkerchief is nothing more than a betrayal of their union which necessitates swift and decisive action. He immediately begins to consider his wife to be exactly what she would appear to be, calling her such names as “cunning whore of Venice” (4.2.91)¹ and therefore deducing that “she must die, else she’ll betray more men” (5.2.6)¹, instantly determined to avenge his seemingly broken delusions with murderous bloodshed. Whatever implications this might have of Shakespeare’s portrayal of men or minorities in his play, it also reflects poorly on Desdemona, who has no opportunity to defend herself and her reputation despite being demonstrably innocent even in death. She, again, becomes a mere object in the conspiracy constructed by Iago in an attack on her husband, nothing more than a piece of property which he believes has been stolen from him just as he “won her” from her father before.

Interestingly, and perhaps irrelevantly, both Desdemona and Ophelia meet their ends in differing forms of asphyxiation — one by smothering and the other by drowning. In a symbolic interpretation it is unlikely that Shakespeare would have actually intended, these parallel deaths could be read as representing each woman’s inability to give voice to their agency in a patriarchal society. Whether the weight of submerged clothing or the vengeful hand of a murderous husband prevented air from their lungs, their voices and lives were suppressed by a force beyond their control, and they were suffocated into meaninglessness and death. The similarity of their mode of death is a strained connection at best, but when considered in the light of their roles relative to their lovers on the scale of the power relationship dichotomy, the final suppression of both Ophelia’s and Desdemona’s voice takes on new meaning and perhaps new significance.

Extrapolating from that understanding, in both plays the very lives of the protagonists’ lovers are subject to the actions and decisions of those selfsame male protagonists, making the minor whims of Hamlet or Othello enough to end either Ophelia or Desdemona. They are wholly secondary to the worlds of their men, and serve merely as objects within the scope of the heroes’ interests. Hamlet eschews romance in the quest to avenge his father, and by and large views doting Ophelia as a sexual object, while Othello “wins” Desdemona through his compelling stories and elects to dispatch her from this planet at the first sign of infidelity. The key understanding regarding the heroines in these tragedies is that both “romantic” relationships are dominated by a destructive patriarchal dichotomy, by a male-controlled power relationship which ends in violence. In both instances, this violence is at the hands of the powerful male (literally in Othello and figuratively in Hamlet) and the female becomes victim. Further, both relationships prove wholly one-sided as Hamlet shrugs off Ophelia’s affections and Othello shows that his true priority is his avoiding reputation as a cuckold rather than any loving feelings he might hold in reserve toward his wife. Both women aim their undying affections at powerful men who show themselves to have no honest romantic interest in either of them outside sexual objectification.

Interestingly, both males express remorse and grief at the deaths of their lovers — Hamlet at Ophelia’s grave before her brother Laertes, and Othello in the act of his own suicide following the realization of Iago’s plot and Desdemona’s apparent innocence. While these penances are not enough to wipe away either character’s culpability in their lovers’ violent deaths, it should additionally be noted that society’s expectations of these women had a significant role to play in their respective demises. It can be interpreted that a primary driving force behind Ophelia’s insanity and suicide, in addition to Hamlet’s apathy, are the conflicting expectations of the society she operated within. Further, Desdemona’s murder is seemingly justified by the notion of her infidelity, and the breaking of societal expectations and contracts there entailed. More than victims of their insane lovers, these women became victims of the patriarchy which dictated their every action and opinion as being subordinate to men. In both plays, they become tools of various male characters or subject themselves to the fleeting whims of men they love, always sacrificing what little agency and power society allows them in the interest of better serving their “lord” or lover. Both seem contented passing from one master, their father, to another, their eventual husband. Finally, throughout both plays the women are portrayed as weak, fragile shells of human specimens whose very existence is subject to the decisions of powerful men in their lives. They subscribe to this power relationship dichotomy so completely that one of them, Ophelia, even takes matters into her own hands to end her life rather than throw the expectations of men out of balance.

This, of course, is all typical of the time in which Shakespeare authored his works and is rather indicative of the role of women within Elizabethan English society. The relative chauvinism of the bard is, as ever, up for debate, but it is particularly intriguing that a man invented such weak and unassuming females who are more accurately called “plot devices” than actual characters. Coupled with the fact that males in drag would have performed early iterations of the play in live form, the audience is left with what would appear a mocking and pathetic stereotype of contemporary women that only furthers the notion that patriarchal societies paid them little mind. In two plays which eventually devolve into bloodbaths, Ophelia and Desdemona are among the earliest to die, one by her own hand and the other due to actions ascribed to her but beyond her control. In both cases, their naïveté and foolish idealism are a component of their inevitable undoing. In their pathetic romances with men who, in the end, care as little about them as the societies which rob them of agency and self-determination, Shakespeare paints young women as fragile and hapless romantic creatures whose lives have only as much meaning as their lovers dictate them to. Thankfully, it would appear to many that in a handful of other plays — Twelfth Night among them — Shakespeare managed to portray some of his heroines in more assertive and powerful roles. But as countless action-adventure blockbusters remind us time and again, society has room to grow in its depiction of women before Ophelia and Desdemona appear as absurd and demeaning as they truly are.