Are we ready to talk about how the structure of the entire album’s structure mirrors Ophelia’s story in Hamlet?
We open with her alone and her heart being saved. She’s living in fantasy.
In Opalite, we get a reference to talking with her brother, just like Ophelia does at the beginning of the play.
Then the father figure pulls the strings, just as Ophelia’s father does in Hamlet.
In Eldest Daughter, she falls and breaks her arm and we get our first flower reference. This is Ophelia wandering Elsinore and the willow branch breaking.
Then she sings songs more explicit than any others in her discography. We get more flower references in Wood. This mirrors Ophelia’s own explicit songs she sings before her death as she hands out flowers for their meanings.
By the time we get to CANCELLED!, Ophelia has died and welcomes us to her underworld.
In the final track on TLOAS, we meet the album’s showgirl gone past, just as Hamlet speaks to the skull of the jester. Taylor says “they leave us for dead” and the mourners move on. We get our last flower reference with peach, symbolizing rebirth/immortality, just as Taylor tells us she’s immortal now.
The album cycles back around and we get The Fate of Ophelia to start the cycle all over again.
Her mind… 🤯
