Ophelia in "Hamlet"
Source for image: John William Waterhouse
“Get thee to a nunnery” (Act 3, scene 1, line 121) tells Hamlet to Ophelia.
a) Nunnery: a convent (to protect her chastity)
b) Brothel (slang)
This dichotomy belongs to a context of opposites in Western tradition in which women have come to be judged by double standards: either as the idealized Petarchan object of the artist musings, the Virgin Mary of religious imagery, the Victorian Angel of the Hearth as depicted in Coventry Patmore’s, “The Angel in the House” (1854), or John Ruskin’s lecture “Lilies. Of Queens’ Gardens” (1886); or quite the contrary, the Magdalene of the bible or the unchaste Fallen Woman of many writings.
