ophelia is one of my favorite characters in literature (and painting subjects) - to me, she represents naïveté, femininity, and softness. ophelia spends her life being dictated by her father, her brother, and her lover, hamlet. she’s used as an outlet for their aggression and seen as sneaky and conniving, using her sexuality to get what she wants. truly, in reality, she’s just an innocent girl, madly in love with hamlet and pushed to her own drowning by the very men she’s trying to protect and care for. ⁣
to me, the song is ultimately about a girl, being abused, gaslit, and villainized for her femininity. i wrote this through the perspective of what she would hear and what she would be thinking of herself in that moment. it’s snarky, really, and in my world, ophelia doesn’t drown, she’s not pushed to madness. in my world, she kills that version of herself in her head & drowns those thoughts…

rip to innocence.