What happens to Ophelia?

[ElephantsAndMiasmas]

Ok, slightly strange question maybe, but every time I see/read bits of Hamlet, it strikes me that Ophelia's role/story is always left to one side. She goes "mad" and that's that, apparently. Such gems as "Ophelia herself is not as important as her representation of the dual nature of women in the play." really get my goat. What actually happens to her?

Last time I saw it it seemed pretty obvious that Hamlet has either slept with her or raped her and got her pregnant, and then refused to marry her. Is there a consensus on this, or anything good I could read about her or other female characters in Shakespeare?

Midsummer Night's Dream? I don't like the idea that they're still drugged up with whatever Puck give them at the end and you don't know if it'll wear off and Demetrius will still be an abusive arsehole. Loads of schools do that as a play for end of primary/beginning of secondary and play him being a git to her for laughs ... really nasty, actually.

Oh I don't hate Dante, he wrote a good poem but all this so-in-love stuff is just, well, a bit silly. You don't get many women writing that kind of thing do you? I wonder why not.

I've got a lot of love for Wilkie Collins, chiefly for having women who actually DO things, and for not killing off all the Naughty Ladies (e.g. Magdalen Vanstone in No Name).

Wilkie Collins is fab - The Law and the Lady has a pregnant detective heroine who fearlessly dives in to sort out her husband's mess while he whimpers in a corner somewhere.

Back to Shakespeare, Claudio's humiliation of Hero in Much Ado is absolutely vile. But Shakespeare is very sympathetic to the suffering caused, both Beatrice and Benedick leap in to help Hero and the Claudio/Hero reconciliation is rather underplayed as I recall.

Actually, I wonder how much women didn't write love poems like that (well, some do I know, but I agree it's more of a bloke thing), because it used to be perfectly ok for a man to sigh after a woman (even if, apparently, he's married to someone else), but if a woman does, there's a suspicion she might be having The Sex and her babies would be illegitimate?

mooncup - I love Much Ado so much.

That's interesting LRD - and also I think because men were seen as the active ones, so it was OK for them to have strong emotions and run around in pursuit, but v. undignified for women to do anything except embroider and wait for suitors.

YES MooncupGoddess, I thought I'd bored everyone to death with my love of the Law and the Lady so was having a change of book :o

Also, The Dead Secret is excellent.

Sexist bastard men get no quarter whatever in Much Ado, it's an excellent play in that regard. The recent David Tennant version that featured Hero's mum was interesting for this too.