Emma Kenney

William Shakespeare has written many beloved plays that are still incredibly popular today. Perhaps one of his most well-known plays is Hamlet. This tale of duty and betrayal has been read by many, and Hamlet’s soliloquies are some of the most recited monologues and iconic scenes of all time.

Over the years there have been many versions of this play. It has been performed with famous actors such as David Tennant, and it has ben done as a movie. There have been television show episodes and books semi-based off of it. One book in particular, however, is based off it a bit more than others. Ophelia by Lisa Klein tells the story of Hamlet from the perspective of Ophelia. It is an interesting read from a point of view that is rarely shown or even thought about. However, the book does contain quite a few differences from the original play’s storyline, which show it to be something of a different nature than Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

The first big difference between the two stories is the fact Lisa Klein’s story shows Ophelia and Hamlet as children. The novel starts when Ophelia is roughly ten and hamlet is in his mid to late teen years. It shows Ophelia before she came to the castle and then as a child within the castle. Klein’s story talks of neglect Ophelia faces at the hand of her father and depicts her as a young tomboy who would much rather run around and roughhouse with the boys than sew or play music. It shows the reader how Ophelia became a lady in the queen’s court and how she rose and fell in her eyes. These are all topics Shakespeare’s original play doesn’t even touch on, as the focal point is not Ophelia but Hamlet.

In Hamlet, Hamlet doesn’t decide he loves Ophelia until after she is already dead, but in the story by Lisa Klein, Hamlet declares his love for her much sooner, although he does so in secret. In her story only Horatio knows of the declared love between the two and helps them to marry in secret. Hamlet declares his love for her many times in the book and chases after her soon after Ophelia turns fifteen or sixteen. He is able to finally woo her and they are often seen in the novel sneaking away to kiss or to do more saucy things. This is all very different from the original storyline where, as previously mentioned, there is no mention of Hamlet even remotely liking Ophelia until she is already dead.

Hamlet’s descent into madness is also much different in the original play. For starters, since it is about Hamlet himself you see way more of the descent than you do in Ophelia, and there is a much greater focus and emphasis placed on it than in Lisa Klein’s Ophelia. In the play we see even from the beginning he is not mentally well, and we get wonderful speeches such as the following:

To be, or not to be — that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them. To die, to sleep — no more — and by a sleep to say we end the heartache, and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to. ’Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep — to sleep — perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause. There’s the respect that makes calamity of so long life. For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, th’ oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely, the pangs of despised love, the law’s delay, the insolence of office, and the spurns that patient merit of th’ unworthy takes, when he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life, but that the dread of something after death, the undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveller returns, puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, and thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought, and enterprise of great pitch and moment with this regard their currents turn awry and lose the name of action. — Soft you now, the fair Ophelia! — Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remembered.

While Hamlet still tries to convince his friends in the play he is merely pretending to be crazy, there are enough speeches and lines from him to show he is really not just pretending at all. The novel, however, is lacking some of these vital quotations and scenes. While one can definitely still tell Hamlet is crazy, the reader doesn’t get to see him fall into it slowly and surely. It is portrayed more along the lines of, “Oh my dad is dead? I guess I’m completely and totally mental now!”  It is quite unfortunate, as that character development is one of the things that makes Shakespeare’s play so wonderful.

One of the biggest differences between the novel and the play is the way Ophelia’s tale is ended. In the play she is depicted as going mad, and she falls from a tree in what is suspected to have been suicide. In the novel she does what Hamlet claims to do and fakes madness in attempt to protect herself. When this only draws more attention to her, she freaks out and starts trying to figure out how to escape the castle and all of Denmark. Finally, with the help Horatio and the queen she fakes her death and flees Denmark with basically only the clothes on her back and some money from the queen. She ends up at a convent where she spends the rest of her days as the “doctor” for the town. This takes up the entire second half of the novel (in what is considered to be, by many, one of the most boring and useless halves of a novel ever to be written in the English language). Also, while she is at the convent in the novel taking care of all the sick and crazy people, she ends up giving birth to Hamlet’s son, whom she names (drumroll please) Hamlet. This is something incredibly and drastically different between the novel and the play, as Shakespeare never wrote Hamlet to have an heir at all. Lisa Klein’s novel, however, takes some creative liberties, however, and writes one in.

Another difference between the play and the novel is theme and focus. The novel places emphasis upon “sexual awakening,” to the point of taking away from the plot, which is something the play never does. The focus is on Ophelia, who she is, and what she does, as well as on love, how it should make one act, and whether love is ever true at all. One important theme is how all of humanity is corrupted, specifically by lust, and how that lustful corruptness affects everyone. It also shows that if the king falls so will the kingdom, though the play shows this as well. The play talks about corruption like the novel, but in the play the focus of corruption is placed upon the desire for power, not upon lustful desires. It depicts most of the corruption in the story to come from character’s desires to rule and to be in charge or to be honored and recognized by all. The play focuses on Hamlet, his descent into madness, and the fall of Denmark instead of on Ophelia and what she does and thinks. The focus is never really placed upon love at all, because that’s just not what the original story is about, other than when Ophelia is trying to cure Hamlet’s insanity by loving him and bidding him to love her back.

It is incredibly easy to see how different these two are, and those differences are why Shakespeare’s beloved Hamlet has stood the test of time and Lisa Klein’s Ophelia has barely been heard of. Though Shakespeare brings them up in interesting ways, the themes of his play are important and relatable (we all deal with death and with corruption). Because of that his play will continue to stand the test of time, unlike those that warp and change these themes into something less than. The play is loved for its quality of writing and plot, and when one tries to change that too much it is better to have just invented a different story altogether. Ultimately, though, it is safe to say both these stories do share one thing: they show that at the end of the day we all have to choose. We most chose to deal with our grief — to run from it or to face it head on.