Effigy
by Riley O’Connell
Art by Cass Waters
"Young women should model themselves on Shakespeare's heroines instead of reality stars… Look at Rosalind, look at Beatrice, look at Viola, the capacity in challenge and dilemma and pain, to love, to be vivacious, to be resourceful, to be resilient - they embody it so vividly, and that is a really powerful message. It's not that terrible things happen to them, it's how they respond."
- Jane Lunnon, head of Wimbledon High School, for the BBC
Third wife [2] widowed wife [3] dead in a willow wife [4]
warring [5],[6] willing [7] used to be cool wife [8]
Daughter as barter [9] puppet [10] or lover [11]
wise when disguised as a man ranked above her [10],[12],[13],[14],[15],[16]
Lovelorn [4],[17] too jealous [9],[18],[19] in love with an ass [20]
dropped her vocation for the first man who asked [21]
With child [22] motherless child [1],[4],[13],[18],[19],[21],[23],[24],[25],[26],[27],[28] bastard [29] child bride [30]
raped [31] stabbed [31],[32],[33] poisoned [3],[19] dead by suicide [4],[5],[6],[18],[30],[34]
Gravely guilty [6] jailed and hung [23]
smothered [1] and smothering [17] with neither hands nor tongue [31]
Fed her dead sons and then fed to the beasts [33]
drowning in suitors [16],[23] or drowning in sea [4]
I understand now about role models, Jane:
Prosperity’s not found in internet fame
The choice is quite clear once you search your heart:
The best woman to be is dead from the start [35]
•••
[1] Desdemona, Othello
[2] Fulvia, Antony & Cleopatra
[3] Queen Gertrude, Hamlet
[4] Ophelia, Hamlet
[5] Cleopatra, Antony & Cleopatra
[6] Lady Macbeth, Macbeth
[7] Virgilia, Coriolanus
[8] Katherine, Taming of the Shrew
[9] Hermia, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
[10] Portia, The Merchant of Venice
[11] King Antioch's unnamed daughter/lover, Pericles
[12] Jessica, The Merchant of Venice
[13] Rosalind, As You Like It
[14] Viola, Twelfth Night
[15] Imogen, Cymbeline
[16] Julia, The Two Gentlemen of Verona
[17] Helena, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
[18] Goneril, King Lear
[19] Regan, King Lear
[20] Titania, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
[21] Isabella, Measure for Measure
[22] Juliet, Measure for Measure
[23] Cordelia, King Lear
[24] Marina, Pericles
[25] Miranda, The Tempest
[26] Beatrice, Much Ado About Nothing
[27] Hero, Much Ado About Nothing
[28] Celia, As You Like It
[29] Perdita, The Winter’s Tale
[30] Juliet, Romeo & Juliet
[31] Lavinia, Titus Andronicus
[32] Emilia, Othello
[33] Tamora, Titus Andronicus
[34] Portia, Julius Caesar
[35] Sycorax, The Tempest
Cass Waters, Untitled, painting
