Hamlet’s Ophelia

Hamlet’s Ophelia

William Shakespeare has written many masterpiece plays and has told a vital story in almost all of them. In the play Hamlet Shakespeare uses melancholy, grief, and madness to pervade the works of a great play. Throughout the play Shakespeare uses such emotional malady within Hamlet, that the audience not only sympathizes with the tragic prince Hamlet, but to provide the very complexities necessary in understanding the tragedy of his lady Ophelia as well. It is the poor Ophelia who suffers at her lover's discretion.

Hamlet provides his own self-torture and does fall victim to melancholia and grief, however his madness is feigned. Ophelia and Hamlet each share a common connection: the loss of a parental figure. Hamlet loses his father as a result of a horrible murder, as does Ophelia. Her situation is more severe because it is her lover who murders her father and all of her hopes for her future as well. When looking at her character, one would think she was in grief but quickly turns to madness. Ophelia is made to be this sweet innocent girl but then turns crazy after her father dies and Hamlet leaves for England.

People argue that Hamlet has the first reason to be hurt by Ophelia because she follows her father's admonitions regarding Hamlet and his true intentions for their love. Polonius tells Ophelia that Hamlet will not do anything but be fickle with the girls since he is suppose to have an arranged marriage. After telling Ophelia this, Polonius and Claudius try to have Ophelia become bait to find out why Hamlet us acting crazy. Hamlet begins with his overwhelming sarcasm toward Ophelia, "I humbly thank you, well, well, well," he says to her regarding her initial pleasantries (3.1.91). Before this scene, he has heard the King and Polonius establishing a plan to deduce his unusual and grief-stricken behavior. Hamlet is well aware that this plan merely uses Ophelia as a tool, and as such, she does not have much option of refusing without angering not only her busybody father but the conniving King Claudius as well. Hamlet readily refuses that he cared for her. He tells her and all of his uninvited listeners, "No, not I, I never gave you aught" (3.1.94-95).

Hamlet has a right to direct his anger to Ophelia because it was her that “repelled” against him. Her father forced her, and if she did try to disobey her father she could be disowned. Furthermore, Ophelia cannot know that Hamlet's attitude toward her reflects his disillusionment in his mother; Hamlet's inconstancy can only mean deceitfulness or madness. She is undeniably caught in a trap that has been laid, in part, by her lover whom she does love and idealize. Her shock is genuine when Hamlet demands "get thee to a nunnery" (line120). Hamlet is saying this to show that Ophelia is not only throwing herself at Hamlet but also letting her father control Ophelia. Hamlet's melancholy permits him the flexibility of character to convey manic-depressive actions while Ophelia's is much more overwhelming and painful. Shakespeare is ambiguous about the reality of Hamlet's insanity, fluctuating between sanity and madness.

Hamlet mourns for his father, but it is the bitterness and will that he harbors towards his mother for her hasty marriage to his uncle. His thoughts of Ophelia are secondary at best. When it happens that Hamlet accidentally slays Polonius, he does not appear to be thinking of the potential effect of his actions on Ophelia. Hamlet has sealed her fate. No matter what Hamlet puts towards Ophelia she will always love him. Throughout the entire murder scene in Act 3, Scene4, Hamlet does not remark about the damage he has done to Ophelia. His emotional upswing is devoted entirely to his mother, and while his emotions are not an imitation, he does admit that he