“I have heard of your paintings,” Prince Hamlet seethes at Ophelia. “God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another” (Hamlet, 3.1.114). In this oft-quoted monologue, Hamlet condemns all of womankind for deceiving the world of their true appearances. This isn’t a shocking statement. In the canon of English literature, women are constantly berated for their supposed deceptions. From the moment Eve plucked the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, women in the media have been characterized as deceitful, dishonest, and even demonic. Women alter their appearances. Women don’t mean what they say. Women keep secrets. To keep it short, women are liars. We are not to be trusted.
In this scene, Hamlet’s outburst appears to stem from intense anger at his mother’s remarriage, which in turn substantiates his general mistrust of women. Though his anger is misplaced, Hamlet’s claim holds an element of truth to it. Women in literature and film are often denied the opportunity to express their true selves, and this denial can lead characters to take drastic — and occasionally deadly — measures to escape the reality that has been forced upon them. Presentation is their mode of survival. To complicate this further, Hamlet’s admonishment of women’s “paintings” becomes reductive in light of the fact that paintings are created for interpretation. So, the question becomes, whose interpretation do we consider true?
In addition to Lady Ophelia from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, I see the Lisbon sisters from Jeffrey Eugenides’ The Virgin Suicides and the Lady of Shalott from Alfred Tennyson’s eponymous poem as standout examples of the intersection between art, truth, and femininity. Each of these characters is shut out of society — physically, metaphorically, or both. There is Ophelia, caught between her love for Hamlet and her fidelity to her father, which drives her to madness. The Lisbon sisters are confined to the four walls of their house by their parents following the suicide of the youngest Lisbon sister, Cecelia. Finally, the elusive Lady of Shalott lives in a tower and can only experience the world through the reflection of a magic mirror. These removals from reality allow readers, as well as other characters, to view the women as objects to be observed, revealing the harsh contrast between what is and what is perceived.
The visual imagery used in these stories frames the female characters as innocent, pristine, and even angelic — a complete contradiction to the fates these characters meet. In this sense, the characters have been painted to appear in a particular manner, but not as a result of their own design. Flowers, for instance, feature heavily in each of these stories as a way for external forces to manipulate the female character's presentation. Flowers are generally associated with femininity, beauty, youth, and innocence. Beautiful and delicate, flowers are used in these stories to cover up things that aren’t so nice to look at.
Flowers are what make death bearable for the people closest to Lady Ophelia, who dies with strands of “crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples” caught in her hair — another symbol of youth and beauty. In recounting the details of Ophelia’s self-inflicted drowning, Queen Gertrude emphasizes the role of flowers in her death, describing how they gently pulled her body into the water. Ophelia is no longer an actor in her own right, but an object to be manipulated. This ultimately detracts from the true horror of what Ophelia has done to herself, preserving her innocence and obscuring her madness.
In a number of paintings based on Tennyson’s poem, the Lady of Shalott is also covered in flowers as her body sails to Camelot. When Sir Lancelot, the knight who once rode past her tower, sees the Lady, he makes no comment on the fact that she is dead. In fact, the only comment he makes is that she “had a lovely face” (118). In the film adaptation of The Virgin Suicides, the Lisbon sisters are often seen wearing clothes with flower patterns on them, and sometimes have actual flowers stuck in their hair. The fact that their clothes are often white adds to the symbolism of purity and innocence. In each of these cases, flowery imagery lessens the impact of the brutal and gory suicides of Ophelia, the Lady of Shalott, and the Lisbon sisters. Instead, their deaths are depicted as ethereal and beautiful — even if these women didn’t live their lives that way.
In one of the first scenes in the adapted film of The Virgin Suicides, we are introduced to Cecelia Lisbon, who has been hospitalized after a suicide attempt that shakes the entire neighbourhood. The doctor treating Cecelia is confused, telling her that she “isn’t old enough to know how bad life gets.” To this, Cecelia responds: “Obviously, Doctor, you’ve never been a 13-year-old girl.” This interaction sets the stage for the film’s premise, which is a relentless investigation and interpretation of the Lisbon girls. This story is actually being told 20 years into the future, by a group of boys who used to live in the neighbourhood at the time. Even as middle-aged men, these boys have an obsessive need to further understand what happened to the Lisbon girls. In their memories, they recall stumbling across a diary that was written by Cecelia in the Lisbon’s trash, tearing through the pages in order to make connections with these girls.
Flowers are what make death bearable for the people closest to Lady Ophelia, who dies with strands of “crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples” caught in her hair — another symbol of youth and beauty. In recounting the details of Ophelia’s self-inflicted drowning, Queen Gertrude emphasizes the role of flowers in her death, describing how they gently pulled her body into the water. Ophelia is no longer an actor in her own right, but an object to be manipulated. This ultimately detracts from the true horror of what Ophelia has done to herself, preserving her innocence and obscuring her madness.
In a number of paintings based on Tennyson’s poem, the Lady of Shalott is also covered in flowers as her body sails to Camelot. When Sir Lancelot, the knight who once rode past her tower, sees the Lady, he makes no comment on the fact that she is dead. In fact, the only comment he makes is that she “had a lovely face” (118). In the film adaptation of The Virgin Suicides, the Lisbon sisters are often seen wearing clothes with flower patterns on them, and sometimes have actual flowers stuck in their hair. The fact that their clothes are often white adds to the symbolism of purity and innocence. In each of these cases, flowery imagery lessens the impact of the brutal and gory suicides of Ophelia, the Lady of Shalott, and the Lisbon sisters. Instead, their deaths are depicted as ethereal and beautiful — even if these women didn’t live their lives that way.
In one of the first scenes in the adapted film of The Virgin Suicides, we are introduced to Cecelia Lisbon, who has been hospitalized after a suicide attempt that shakes the entire neighbourhood. The doctor treating Cecelia is confused, telling her that she “isn’t old enough to know how bad life gets.” To this, Cecelia responds: “Obviously, Doctor, you’ve never been a 13-year-old girl.” This interaction sets the stage for the film’s premise, which is a relentless investigation and interpretation of the Lisbon girls. This story is actually being told 20 years into the future, by a group of boys who used to live in the neighbourhood at the time. Even as middle-aged men, these boys have an obsessive need to further understand what happened to the Lisbon girls. In their memories, they recall stumbling across a diary that was written by Cecelia in the Lisbon’s trash, tearing through the pages in order to make connections with these girls.
In this clip, it is clear that the boys have a very rose-coloured view when it comes to the Lisbon girls. Even the way the clip was shot, blurry and dream-like, demonstrates that the boys still do not know anything real or substantial about the girls — something that they must admit to themselves by the end of the film. Yet, they still continue to search for the truth of the girls’ lives. When all is said and done, the Lisbon girls remain as much a mystery to us as they do to the boys. In this sense, the boys have a similar role to the Lady of Shalott. While they may not be the ones confined to a tower, they desperately want to understand the girls across the street the way the Lady wants to understand the town below. However, neither is ever able to fully understand — only to piece together clues through reflections of who these people might be.
Chasing reality and searching for the truth are both very common themes in literature and film, and the characters on these journeys often venture down destructive paths in order to find reality. Seeking out the truth proves to be a burden for the Lady of Shalott, for Ophelia, and even for the boys who once lived across the street from the Lisbon girls. But, if we can learn to accept the harsh truth that appearances do not always reflect reality, perhaps we can gain a better understanding of not only who these characters are but who we are, too.
Perhaps we can learn to paint our own self-portraits.
***This is a slightly edited version of a presentation I made in high school. I was quite proud of it at the time, so I thought it would be nice if it could live somewhere other than my old hard drive.
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