An Analysis Of The Awakening Of Ophelia From The Perspective Of Feminist Criticism

William Shakespeare is the greatest writer in the European Renaissance period; he occupies an important position in the history of European literature. Shakespeare’s classic tragedy Hamlet has been widely studied all over the world, and the research content involves the tragic aesthetics, madness, religious redemption and death, etc. Under the influence of patriarchal thought in the West, literary criticisms are mostly focused on the male protagonists, and Hamlet is no exception. Under the background that women are in the marginal and subordinate status, they are lacking in autonomy; it is extremely difficult to arouse their attention.Since the 1960s, Feminist Criticism has developed super-fast, and it involves most of the literary works written by the female writer and focuses on the works with the male protagonist, for Hamlet, there is relatively little research on Ophelia. This paper is based on feminist criticism, combined with Foucault’s madness theory, research the awakening of female consciousness from the perspective of feminist criticism, discuss Ophelia’s madness is the omen of awakening. Under the dual requirements of feminism and Renaissance’s "people-oriented" core, Ophelia’s self-consciousness will awake inevitably.In the first part, the paper has introduced Shakespeare’s life, literature achievements, pointed out the innovation, significance and research methods of this paper. The second part was mainly based on the research situation on Hamlet; analyzed the basic theory of feminist criticism, the origin, development and basic characteristics about the theory. In the third part of the article, used the feminist criticism theory to introduce Ophelia’s female consciousness and female image, illustrated that Ophelia’s madness was the omen of awakening, and connected with the patriarchal society to reflect the awakening of female self-consciousness overturned the traditional social system. The fourth chapter described Ophelia’s explosive awakening, from female self-consciousness awakening to the liberation of the soul, let the function of the feminist criticism reached to its peak, then put the conclusion at last.