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alicia_hWhen I first had the idea for this story - during an Inorganic Chemistry lecture of all times - I first had the idea that Horatio killed Ophelia within the play itself (or an interpretation of it).
It had probably been bugging me on some level that Horatio seems to be charged with looking after Ophelia, he does follow her out according to stage directions in the copy I have and it's the impression a lot of films give.
It's interesting to watch the Horatio and Ophelia interaction in various versions of this scene. In the 1969 version with Gordon Jackson as Horatio and Marianne Faithfull as Ophelia there is a great moment between them and when she leaves the first time he follows her out. Then when she bursts back in she's alone. I've realised since that this could be the moment when Horatio is waylaid by pirates/sailors with letters from Hamlet. (It is certainly so in the Laurence Olivier version!)
The next we hear of Ophelia after she's left the stage a second time, she is dead. Drowned. There's a lot of ways to think around it and a lot of people who have puzzled over Ophelia's death. They've had 400 years to go at it after all.
The idea of Horatio murdering Ophelia struck me as an interesting idea but my thoughts went to the idea of the murderer and victim being actors playing these parts. I linked it in my mind with the Baby Whale song This Ain't My Life. In that song a man kills a young woman but it is intriguingly vague about what actually happens
"She shows an ankle when she's kneeling
I held my hand over her scream
I saw the body slowly sinking
I knew she'd never be seen
There's an ribbon from a ballgown
And it's hanging from my hand"
What actually happens between them? I wanted to know that since I first started listening to that song and I have listened to it many many times over the past few years. The mysteriousness and the water connection definitely had me thinking Ophelia, especially after the murder idea got lodged in my head.
This is the very first note I made about the ideas I had for this story. I had to whip my ipod out to jot it down, even if it was the middle of the lecture:
------
Ophelia postcard and painting
This Ain't My Life
Horatio and Ophelia
The lover waiting for her
Hamlet
Are the Hamlet and Horatio characters male or female? Leaning towards female Hamlet and unspecified Horatio. Whether a man or woman, Horatio is shown as quiet and bookish. Perhaps a curator or regular of the art gallery where the Ophelia painting resides.
Costume party/masquerade
Potential order
Murder
Immediate aftermath including Hamlet kiss ("learn your lines, love") and snatches of scenes together
Leading up to (as a relived memory?)
Postcard and art gallery
Who questions the survivor? Who is there to validate his story or even to disprove it?
----------------------------------
So my idea started as an actor who murdered his (or at that point possibly her) colleague for whatever reason it might be (love or jealousy over whoever may be playing Hamlet?) He is then reminded of his crime by a painting of Ophelia in an art gallery or museum where perhaps he is the curator.
Now, over a year an a half half later with many notes, speculations and an attempted beginning in between, I started writing this story as my Camp Nanowrimo for August.
There's more going on in the story now of course with the introduction of time travel in the novel's universe (which is, if not quite steampunk, at least some form of alternate history... probably). There is also the integration of a family of characters who I have tried to write an epic story about several times over the past seven years. They will have their own posts I'm certain.
So, with the application of time travel the part of the story I'm focusing on here has become something more along these lines. A man who once did kill a woman but is now determined to change his own past. He may even have been manipulated into it by the past version of that woman who witnessed the death and then encounters him in his own time later. It may even be worth noting that later is actually the beginning of the story. Oh, time travel, what have I let myself in for by including you?
I've just about figured out how things appear from various characters' points of view but I'm leaving how the time travel works quite vague so I have chance to figure it out properly as I go along. Or not because even the characters who do travel in time may not understand if they are dealing with time loops or separate universes.
It had probably been bugging me on some level that Horatio seems to be charged with looking after Ophelia, he does follow her out according to stage directions in the copy I have and it's the impression a lot of films give.
It's interesting to watch the Horatio and Ophelia interaction in various versions of this scene. In the 1969 version with Gordon Jackson as Horatio and Marianne Faithfull as Ophelia there is a great moment between them and when she leaves the first time he follows her out. Then when she bursts back in she's alone. I've realised since that this could be the moment when Horatio is waylaid by pirates/sailors with letters from Hamlet. (It is certainly so in the Laurence Olivier version!)
The next we hear of Ophelia after she's left the stage a second time, she is dead. Drowned. There's a lot of ways to think around it and a lot of people who have puzzled over Ophelia's death. They've had 400 years to go at it after all.
The idea of Horatio murdering Ophelia struck me as an interesting idea but my thoughts went to the idea of the murderer and victim being actors playing these parts. I linked it in my mind with the Baby Whale song This Ain't My Life. In that song a man kills a young woman but it is intriguingly vague about what actually happens
"She shows an ankle when she's kneeling
I held my hand over her scream
I saw the body slowly sinking
I knew she'd never be seen
There's an ribbon from a ballgown
And it's hanging from my hand"
What actually happens between them? I wanted to know that since I first started listening to that song and I have listened to it many many times over the past few years. The mysteriousness and the water connection definitely had me thinking Ophelia, especially after the murder idea got lodged in my head.
This is the very first note I made about the ideas I had for this story. I had to whip my ipod out to jot it down, even if it was the middle of the lecture:
------
Ophelia postcard and painting
This Ain't My Life
Horatio and Ophelia
The lover waiting for her
Hamlet
Are the Hamlet and Horatio characters male or female? Leaning towards female Hamlet and unspecified Horatio. Whether a man or woman, Horatio is shown as quiet and bookish. Perhaps a curator or regular of the art gallery where the Ophelia painting resides.
Costume party/masquerade
Potential order
Murder
Immediate aftermath including Hamlet kiss ("learn your lines, love") and snatches of scenes together
Leading up to (as a relived memory?)
Postcard and art gallery
Who questions the survivor? Who is there to validate his story or even to disprove it?
----------------------------------
So my idea started as an actor who murdered his (or at that point possibly her) colleague for whatever reason it might be (love or jealousy over whoever may be playing Hamlet?) He is then reminded of his crime by a painting of Ophelia in an art gallery or museum where perhaps he is the curator.
Now, over a year an a half half later with many notes, speculations and an attempted beginning in between, I started writing this story as my Camp Nanowrimo for August.
There's more going on in the story now of course with the introduction of time travel in the novel's universe (which is, if not quite steampunk, at least some form of alternate history... probably). There is also the integration of a family of characters who I have tried to write an epic story about several times over the past seven years. They will have their own posts I'm certain.
So, with the application of time travel the part of the story I'm focusing on here has become something more along these lines. A man who once did kill a woman but is now determined to change his own past. He may even have been manipulated into it by the past version of that woman who witnessed the death and then encounters him in his own time later. It may even be worth noting that later is actually the beginning of the story. Oh, time travel, what have I let myself in for by including you?
I've just about figured out how things appear from various characters' points of view but I'm leaving how the time travel works quite vague so I have chance to figure it out properly as I go along. Or not because even the characters who do travel in time may not understand if they are dealing with time loops or separate universes.
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Date: 2012-09-08 03:01 am (UTC)But i've never looked at Horatio in any depth... that's a fresh direction, i always have been distracted by Laertes probably.
and now i have the david bowie private detective song stuck in my head; "Baby Grace was the victim - she was 14 years of age..."
but your description and the Baby Whale (James WHALE??) song made me think of the cut scene from the original Frankenstein film too...
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Date: 2013-02-10 06:24 pm (UTC)and the handy arrival of the players troupe...
could Claudius have paid one of them to act the Ghost in order to drive Hamlet mad and place the crown on the head of any (sane) son born to Claudius and Gertrude? Or could Gertrude???
After all, they are first introduced via Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and where didst THEY spring from???
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Date: 2013-02-28 12:21 am (UTC)http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001tKH
http://impossiblekisses.blogspot.co.uk/2007/11/did-gertrude-murder-ophelia.html
worth noting though is that googling 'Did Horatio kill Ophelia?' brings the reader straight here!