Discover the meaning behind ‘The Fate of Ophelia’ by Taylor Swift!
An upper-class young woman tries to find her place in a patriarchal world under immense pressure. She is in love and ruined by it; her family tells her to forget about the man whose affections she so deeply desires; They tell her to stay away. Her emotions become weapons against her and her lover, and her story revolves around men trying to control her. She finds some kind of power and relief by singing about her rage, even when they call her crazy; she sings even as she chokes, heartbroken and consumed by the expectations of others.
It’s not difficult to understand why Taylor Swift finds Ofelia so close, to the point that it opens her twelfth album, The Life of a Showgirlwhich premiered this October 3, with a song titled ‘The Fate of Ophelia’, a reference to the tragic character of Hamlet of Shakespeare. The song is, in many ways, a rewrite of the ending of Ofelia, and of Swift.
In the prologue of his tenth album, The Tortured Poets Department, Swift claims «temporary insanity» as an explanation for the behavior she describes on the album: falling in love with a self-sabotaging Dylan Thomas wannabe for whom the world condemned her, whose sins she «would have died» for, and thinking she could fix him. He describes romance-induced «madness» as a «mutual manic phase» and «self-harm.» She plays herself as Ophelia to her lover’s tortured and obsessed Hamlet.
Ofelia is not the main character of Hamletbut it is crucial, and is especially subject to the viewer’s perspective. It has been reinterpreted and even rewritten by a rich lineage of artists and writers, perhaps because it is an unfinished canvas.
«Part of the reason why women artists of different mediums have been interested in trying to look at Ofelia again is that she is a little excluded from the work,» she explains. to Teen Vogue Emma Smith, professor of Shakespeare studies at the University of Oxford. «One of the characteristics of the work is that everyone is excluded by Hamlet’s intensity, ego and self-centeredness«.
Ofelia’s lack of backstory, point of view or inner monologue has made her vulnerable to projection over time. Everything from her image to her clothing to her words to the work as a whole has been subject to artistic reimagination, whether on stage or in cinematic performances such as Hamlet (2000, starring Ethan Hawke and Julia Stiles) and Ophelia (2018, starring Daisy Ridley), or in other media, such as the video game Elsinore.
Swift is now part of that history of representation. What he extracts from the character is illuminating to understand so much The life of a showgirl like its predecessor The department of tortured poetsand the stories Swift has been drawn to for nearly two decades. More than anything, Swift’s invocation of Ophelia makes sense because what is Swift’s public image if not an unfinished canvas, which her fans continue to color with their own projections?
Who is Ophelia? Why might it be important to Taylor Swift?
In Hamlet, Ophelia is the daughter of Polonius.the chief advisor of King Claudius (Hamlet’s uncle), and sister of Laertes. The play indicates from the beginning that Ophelia and Hamlet had some kind of romance, although there are not many details. («The question about the level of their relationship… is really ripe for other artists to imagine or reimagine,» Smith notes.) Meanwhile, Hamlet’s father, the previous king of Denmark, has died, and his ghost returns to tell Hamlet that Claudius murdered him and that Hamlet must take revenge on Claudius for killing his brother and marry his brother’s wife, Gertrude (Hamlet’s mother), in quick succession.