From Subservient Reticence to Uncontainable Defiance: The Rendition of Ophelia in the Adaptations of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet by Laurence Olivier, Kenneth Branagh and Michael Almereyda

Ophelia in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a potent discursive site whose interpretive and critical valences have been salvaged through various adaptations of this play. Through the utilization of critical insights of critics such as Jacques Lacan, Elaine Showalter, and commentators like David Leverenz, Bridget Gellert Lyons and Philip Armstrong, the study identifies Ophelia’s schizophrenic characterization, her reminiscences of the past, and her representation through the play’s iconographic values as the negotiable features for taping into Ophelia’s multi-layered characterization. The study chooses Laurence Olivier’s adaptation as the more theatrical rendition of the play next to two more modernized and experimental adaptations done by Michael Almereyda and Kenneth Branagh to discuss its identification of these discursively potent features in Ophelia’s adapted renditions. While utilizing its main critical insights, the study would also use the interpretive readings of commentators such as Amanda Rooks, Jessica Maerz and Gulsen Teker on the cinematic and literary significance of each of the selected adaptations in the continuum of the adaptations done on Hamlet. In the study, it would be argued that although none of the adaptations could deny the patriarchal dominance over Ophelia, the more experimental ones by Branagh and especially Almereyda do manage to tap into the ambivalent points of resistance which Ophelia’s characterization could create against this dominance. These ambivalent points expose the incomplete nature of strategies which are adopted by the patriarchy in containing and othering figures such as Ophelia.