The Legacy of Ophelia and How Her Story Still Reflects Women Today

By: Vaishnavi Tiwari

There’s something hauntingly familiar about the fate of Ophelia, not just as a Shakespearean character, but as a symbol of how the world has long romanticized women’s pain. Centuries may have passed since she drowned, but her story still feels alive today in the way women are seen, portrayed, and even sold to us. Her tragedy isn’t just a story, it’s a reflection that still lingers.

Dear Ophelia, you died a hero. 

The death of Ophelia was tragic and certain. She was drowned in despair long before water took her life. The grief of her father’s death and betrayal from her lover took her deep into misery with no signs of returning. The melancholic death of a girl so young always paves its way into the minds of artists and philosophers. 

They called her innocent and that love killed her- it drove her mad. The death of Ophelia tells a lot about the perception of women people have had for years. To put it into words of Jo March “Women, they have minds, and they have souls, as well as just hearts. And they’ve got ambition, and they’ve got talent, as well as just beauty. And I’m so sick of people saying that love is just all a woman is fit for.” For years women were perceived as a statue made for and out of love. Just love. All they can ever do is love, but is love ever enough? And if you die for love, are you a mad or a hero? 

Once Virginia Woolf presented an idea of Shakesphere having a Sister, Judith. She argued if she would've been as famous as him or even more, if given equal and valid opportunities. I doubt if she would’ve been anything more than a character in one of her brother’s plays, a forgotten friend of Ophelia’s who also dies because her friend did. Unlike how they present men at wars. 

It’s like hanging at the edge of a tree you climbed to pick fruit for your family. If you slip, the value of your fall will be weighed not by your courage but by the weight of the fruit you carried. Women’s lives have so often been measured this way. Their risks, their pain, their brilliance — all reduced to how much they gave, whom they served, whom they loved.

But is it over now? Are the conceptions and perceptions all clean now? To some extent, yes. We live in an age where the concept of feminism is actively discussed. Yet there still exists a bridge — a distance — between women’s voices and the world that hears them. Modern Media came with a lot of campaigns for women and it felt like a stage for speaking up, expressing oneself like never before. 

However, the same stage has now become a platform for romanticizing the idea of women’s feelings and making money out of it. 

It has now romanticised sad women a little too much. Asking for help feels like questioning femininity. So instead, they cry in their rooms with sad music on, 'I am doing okay' is a catchphrase now even if you're suffering in silence, getting drunk and ranting about it to your best friend is cool, being a boss lady is cool ( the kind who puts all men below her heels for the sake of feminism). The conventional idea of women's suffering and love has evolved — from being romanticized in Shakespeare’s time to being commodified online today. What began as generations of struggle and sacrifice for freedom has turned, in parts of modern culture, into a performance of pain — where victimhood is aestheticized and strength is sold. The silence in the stories of women always overpowers their performance, mostly because it is narrated by everyone else, but them. 

The tragic and silent death of Ophelia is the voice of many women in this era of feminism. Her story is still being told — only now, it scrolls by on our screens, dressed in filters and captions about strength. But strength was never about pretending to be unbreakable. It was about daring to exist, to speak, to be heard. 

Perhaps the real rebellion is not dying beautifully, but living truthfully.