The three Ophelias

Ophelia's big problem is that she thinks Hamlet loves her and he has given her reason to believe he did in the past but now she cannot tell. Hamlet is now sending her signals at odds with his past declarations. There are three women in Sense and Sensibility with the Ophelia problem.

• Elinor has received attentions from Edward Ferrars that suggested love but he later acts aloof and may even be avoiding her.
• Marianne has received attentions from John Willoughby that suggested love but he later acts aloof and may even be avoiding her.
• Lucy Steele has received attentions from Edward Ferrars that suggested love and even a secret promise of marriage but he later acts aloof and may even be avoiding her.

All three women also believe that their beloved keeps a lock* of their hair in a cherished place. In addition, all there would do well to consider the advice that Laertes gives Ophelia concerning Hamlet:

.... Perhaps he loves you now,
And now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch
The virtue of his will; but you must fear,
His greatness weigh'd, his will is not his own;
For he himself is subject to his birth.
He may not, as unvalued persons do,
Carve for himself ...

And both Edward Ferrars and John Willoughby have this problem. Both are subject to demands of greatness that keep them from carving for themselves. And neither man's will is his own, creating difficulties for the three Ophelias.

Here, BTW, is my thesis. If you think not of Hamlet but of a Hamlet-type story, I think we can conceive of Sense and Sensibility as such a Hamlet-type story. It is told from the perspective of "Ophelia" (who exactly the "Ophelia" is in this tale is I will leave unanswered for now). There are no murders, no ghosts, no great historical figures but Austen is so good we don't need them.

Did Austen make this Hamlet connection herself? I suspect so but, for my purposes here, we don't need to go that far. What I want to argue on my way through the book on this blog is that thinking of Sense and Sensibility as a Hamlet-type story is and illuminating way to read it.


* Don't worry, I'll get to Pope.