Taylor Swift’s newest album, The Life of a Showgirl, has officially been released, and it’s received a lot of praise and criticism online. This is perhaps Swift’s most controversial album, generating criticism from fans and non-fans alike, with both parties going back and forth about the songs and storytelling of the album.
While all of the album’s songs have received praise and criticism online, one especially controversial song is Swift’s “The Fate of Ophelia.” Fans and non-fans of the album online have been discoursing about her portrayal of Ophelia in this song, with one particular point of contention popping up in the debate: has Swift misrepresented Ophelia’s character?
Ophelia in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet
In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Ophelia meets a tragic end, drowning herself in a river. In many paintings, Ophelia is commonly depicted drowning, surrounded by flowers, with her body floating down the river after she ends her life.
Even though Ophelia dies a “passive” death by drowning, her death represents her personal agency. Through death, she’s exercising her personal agency, which is her character’s greatest limitation. The court of Hamlet is deeply patriarchal, and the men in Ophelia’s life restrict her personal agency and actively dictate and constrain her life.
Ophelia is unable to find her own voice throughout Hamlet due to how her life is restricted by the patriarchal nature of the court. She’s a figure “undone by grief and silence,” taking an active role in the passivity of drowning.
The most common misconception of Ophelia’s character is that it’s solely her “love” for Hamlet that drove her mad. Ophelia is constantly “talked at” by the men in her life, her own thoughts and feelings never considered by the men; Hamlet isn’t a considerate lover, and becomes abusive towards Ophelia near the end of her life: he tells her to go to a nunnery, insults her, and it’s Hamlet’s murder of Ophelia’s father, Polonius, that drives her to go mad and take her own life.
Another prominent aspect of Ophelia’s suicide is the vague nature of her death within Hamlet’s court. Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother, reports Ophelia’s death and says she fell from a tree and drowned in the river while picking flowers. This leads to debate over whether or not her death was a suicide, and whether or not she should be buried in the church’s graveyard. Even in death, the narrative of her suicide, a crucial moment in the play and for her character, is debated and controlled by the men in her life.
Ophelia in Taylor Swift’s “The Fate of Ophelia”
In “The Fate of Ophelia,” Swift uses Ophelia’s character to illustrate her own emotional turbulence. Swift’s song isn’t about Ophelia and Hamlet: it’s about Ophelia’s fate and using it to contrast her own fate and how it was changed after meeting her now fiancé Travis Kelce.
Ophelia is used as an analogy for how Swift felt she was drowning and losing her own mind. Swift isn’t depicting Hamlet and Ophelia’s story as “romantic,” she’s only referring to how she might’ve been driven to the same fate as Ophelia and condemned by the men she loved.
Swift uses lyrics such as “I might’ve drowned in the melancholy,” or “Saved my heart from the fate of Ophelia,” “And if you’d never come for me, I might’ve lingered in purgatory,” and “The venom stole her sanity.”
Swift also says in the official release of The Life of a Showgirl’s movie, when referring to the comparison between Ophelia and herself, “So it’s like, what if the hook is that you saved my heart from the fate of Ophelia? Basically, like, you’re the reason why I didn’t end up like this tragic, poetic heroine.”
Swift isn’t using the entirety of Hamlet; she’s borrowing specific themes and plot points to tell her own story. She’s resonating with one specific part and employing themes of madness and drowning.
Criticism and Defense of Swift’s “The Fate of Ophelia”
While Swift is only using Ophelia to create a comparison with her personal life, I disagree with how she compares her song “Love Story” to “The Fate of Ophelia.” In her movie, Swift says that she’s “putting a romantic spin on the fact that Ophelia was driven mad… but, not me.”
I don’t think this is accurate to Swift’s portrayal of Ophelia in The Life of a Showgirl; her reimagination of Romeo and Juliet in “Love Story” is completely different than how she uses Ophelia’s character in “The Fate of Ophelia.”
“Love Story” takes an already romantic tale and twists it to have a happy ending, and Swift compares it to her own life. On the other hand, romanticizing “The Fate of Ophelia” doesn’t work as well as “Love Story” because one is inherently a love story between the characters, whereas Ophelia’s character and her development throughout Hamlet don’t leave room for a “romantic” interpretation.
However, in defense of Swift, Ophelia’s character might’ve been “saved” by a new love who could’ve saved her from the web she’s trapped in by the men in her life. The misinterpretation of Ophelia’s character occurs when her and Hamlet’s romance is romanticized, because their relationship is far from the romance of a story like Romeo and Juliet.
Another criticism of Swift’s song I’ve seen is of the lyric “All that time, I sat alone in my tower.” Again, I think this still alludes to Swift’s whole purpose of using Ophelia as a metaphor. She’s not literally saying Ophelia was stuck in a tower, but she’s referring to her own isolation, and the isolation of Ophelia feeling trapped in the webs of the patriarchal society of court life.
At the end of the day, Swift’s “The Fate of Ophelia” only uses Ophelia as a metaphor for comparison. Ophelia is used as a storytelling device for Swift to describe her own fate and being “saved” from a tragic fate like Ophelia’s. She’s not literally calling herself Ophelia or trying to downplay Ophelia’s character.
“The Fate of Ophelia” is just a song, and everyone will have different opinions; some people will enjoy it, some won’t. Storytelling aside, “The Fate of Ophelia” is a catchy song, and I don’t think Swift misrepresented Ophelia’s character at all. Using Ophelia as a metaphor for her own life was a very “English teacher” thing to do, which Swift prides herself on.
I didn’t really enjoy the rest of the tracks on The Life of a Showgirl, but Swift’s “The Fate of Ophelia” has been on repeat in my headphones, capturing Swift’s unique storytelling abilities that I enjoy listening to her music for.
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