A Short Story : The Story Of Ophelia

The character of Ophelia is an excellent element of drama used to develop interpretations of Shakespeare’s text. At the beginning of the play, she is happy and in love with Hamlet, who first notices her beauty and then falls in love with her. The development of Ophelia’s madness and the many factors that contributed to her suicide are significant parts of the plot. “Her madness was attributed to the extremity of her emotions, which in such a frail person led to melancholy and eventual breakdown” (Teker, par. 3). The character of Ophelia in Zieffirelli’s version is the personification of a young innocent girl. “Her innocence is mixed with intelligence, keen perception, and erotic awareness” (Teker, par. 13). This Ophelia is a victim

Denmark is in a state of chaos shown by the opening death of the true

     Similarities are an important part of being a foil. One similarity that Hamlet and Ophelia share are that they both are children of controlling parents. [SV - 1] Hamlet's father, who is murdered, comes back as a ghost to tell him who his murderer is. This news is his father's way of controlling him from

Shakespeare places many interesting characters in his plays. Claudius, Polonius, Marcellus, and Reynaldo are a few from his play The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. However, Ophelia appears to be the most innocent all throughout the play. This character has either indirectly or directly affected the lives of every main characters in the script. Ophelia’s character is portrayed as obedient, maidenly, and a mad young girl.

Have you ever heard of the song “What is Love?” by Haddaway? The one that’s then followed by the line “Baby don’t hurt me! Don’t hurt me!” Well, in the movie Reviving Ophelia, Elizabeth has just gotten into her first “serious” relationship. The way she describes her new relationship with a boy from school, Mark, is as if she was discovering for the first time in her life what it means to truly have love. However, this quickly turned for her an illusion of an amazing relationship into one of an abusive relationship.

It is widely believed that “Living life without honor is a tragedy bigger than death itself” and this holds true for Hamlet’s Ophelia. Ophelia’s death symbolizes a life spent passively tolerating Hamlet’s manipulations and the restrictions imposed by those around her, while struggling to maintain the last shred of her dignity. Ophelia’s apathetic reaction to her drowning suggests that she never had control of her own life, as she was expected to comply with the expectations of others. Allowing the water to consume her without a fight alludes to Hamlet’s treatment of Ophelia as merely a device in his personal agenda. Her apparent suicide denotes a desire to take control of her life for once. Ophelia’s death is, arguably, an honorable one,

   Poor Ophelia, she lost her lover, her father, her mind, and, posthumously, her brother. Ophelia is the only truly innocent victim in Hamlet. This essay will examine Ophelia's downward spiral from a chaste maiden to nervous wreck.

Adolescent girls growing up in today’s society endure many more hardships than in previous years. Adolescence is no longer a time of endless sunny days spent on the back porch with a glass of country time lemonade and a smile extending ear to ear. Adolescence for girls is now generalized as a dark and depressing period of life that often seems hopeless and never ending. Mary Pipher PH.D tries to illustrate just how drastically life has changed over the years for teenage girls through her best selling book “Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls”. Although Mary Pipher was once a clinical psychologist, she articulates very well for everyone to clearly understand her ideas and perspectives. One way

     Mary Pipher, author of the book Reviving Ophelia, has made many observations concerning young adolescent girls in our society. She wrote this book in 1994, roughly eleven years ago. Although some of her observations made in the past are not still accurate in today’s world, there are many that are still present in 2005. The primary focus of Pipher’s comments is to explain how young girls are no longer being protected within our society.

In William Shakespeare’s, “Hamlet”, Hamlet’s love interest and Polonius’ daughter, Ophelia, died a passive and sudden death. While hanging wreaths from a willow tree, Ophelia fell from the tree and drowned in a brook. Although her death was claimed to be accidental, it is unknown if she committed suicide because she made no attempt to save herself. Her death represents the life she lived and the relationships she had with other people like her father and Hamlet. Ophelia’s death symbolizes her life with being controlled by her father, her honor and privilege of being buried in sacred ground, and the sudden termination of the relationship she had with Hamlet.

So poor Ophelia is again asked to conform her will to the wishes of another, this time her only living parent, her father.

of a terrible waste of young life. As a result of the way in which

To begin with, Ophelia is a character from the Shakespeare classic Hamlet. She is perceived as a young woman who is kind hearted and obedient towards the male characters within the story. These characteristics cause her to be seen as the victim of the male characters who revolve around the story of Hamlet.

demonstrate her obedience to her father. In the beginning of the play, Ophelia tells her

Ophelia is another one of Shakespeare’s tragic victims. Throughout the years, her character has been analyzed in a multitude of ways. Arguably being one of the main characters in Hamlet, Ophelia is known for being one of the least developed. In her literary criticism piece, Representing Ophelia: Women, Madness, and the Responsibilities of Feminist Criticism, Elaine Showalter goes through countless interpretations of Ophelia’s character.