Uma leitura da melancolia através da personagem Ofélia de William Shakespeare e suas semelhanças com mulheres reais através dos séculos

Abstract

This work aims to analyze William Shakespeare’s character Ophelia, as part of an interdisciplinary study investigating a potential melancholic condition in the figure. Living in a context of subordination, Ophelia endures various forms of oppression; thus, even before her father’s death, a reading of Hamlet already reveals grounds for an existing melancholic temperament in the character. The traits Sigmund Freud attributes to Hamlet in his essay Mourning and Melancholia are here linked to Ophelia. Additional references include Dramaturgia: Criação da personagem by Renata Pallottini, which supports the character analysis, and the article Resistindo à Clausura: a iconografia de Ofélia (2010) by Erika Viviane Costa Vieira, which helps to understand her representation across art forms beyond the performing arts. Accordingly, this research proposes a mapping of Ophelia’s image in the arts, identifying visual and symbolic signs associated with her — signs that allow artists and audiences of other creative languages (visual arts, film, music) to experience the catharsis of melancholy. Finally, the work draws an analogy between Ophelia and real women, both past and present, who have suffered devastating, even irreversible loss.