The reference to Ophelia, from Shakespeare’s
Hamlet, affirms Catalina’s tragic position. Ophelia’s life was dominated by the men around her, driving her to madness. Tragically. her suicide is the only time in the play that she expresses her own agency. Catalina resembles Ophelia in more ways than one: her life is dominated by Virgil, she has an illness that affects her mental acuity, and, as the reader will soon see, she appears to attempt to take her own life.