Mallory. The name is derived from Old French word “malheure” meaning unfortunate, unhappy, and unlucky. This painting is a representation of the famous Shakespearean play, Hamlet. The painting features a woman with golden blonde hair, skin that is pale and sickly, eyes that are blind and shedding tears of blood, a deformation at the forehead, lips consumed by a black substance, and four streaks of blood at the neckline. Every portion of the piece tells the play symbolically.
Foremost, the golden blonde hair represents Hamlet’s hair color in the cinematic production of Hamlet by Branagh.
The pale white skin symbolizes Hamlet’s cold soul due to his father’s death. The white skin signifies how cold, isolated, empty, and detached Hamlet became. His father’s death caused him to separate from society. He felt as if nobody was sympathizing with him as he was grieving for his father’s death. …show more content…
Nobody in the play knew about Claudius’ murder of the old King except for Hamlet. Everybody felt as if Hamlet was being unreasonable and that he was still pondering in the past. They were all ignorant. The blind eyes symbolize ignorance; they prove to us that ignorance is truly bliss since each person in the play that decided to ignore the death of the old King seemed much happier than the one who didn’t.
The blood-saturated tears signify the bloody pain that the young noblewoman Ophelia experienced after discovering that her father had been murdered. Ophelia truly went insane due to her father’s death. She had already experienced a ponderous amount of emotional pain, from Hamlet’s heartless separation with her to the death of her father. The tears, in general, signify her sadness inside. The blood within the tears signify her suicide near the end of the