Character Response To Fated Ophelia In Shakespeare's Hamlet

In Shakespeare's play, Hamlet, the character Ophelia is very controversial due to the fact that Shakespeare places her as the focus inside the minds of all the men in her life such as Polonius, Laertes, and Hamlet. Although Ophelia may appear to just be a beautiful, weak girl, she has the ability to gain power and attention over all of the men in her life. Throughout the play, Ophelia does not have much of a voice while also being mistreated and emotionally abused by her boyfriend Hamlet. Although Ophelia does not express her opinions and emotions publicly, she propels the plot along by influencing major events. Ophelia’s weak, indecisive, and obedient personality allows her to progress the plot by Shakespeare making her the focus of the men in

In "No Fear Shakespeare Hamlet" Ophelia is just a innocent victim that acts on what people tell her to do and don’t respond to what she want. Hamlet and Ophelia's love was real and not a lust but she let people manipulate her. When you love somebody they will do whatever it takes to protect and support there loved one and Ophelia played victim of loving Hamlet.

The story of Hamlet is a morbid tale of tragedy, commitment, and manipulation; this is especially evident within the character of Ophelia. Throughout the play, Ophelia is torn between obeying and following the different commitments that she has to men in her life. She is constantly torn between the choice of obeying the decisions and wishes of her family or that of Hamlet. She is a constant subject of manipulation and brain washing from both her father and brother. Ophelia is not only subject to the torture of others using her for their intentions but she is also susceptible to abuse from Hamlet. Both her father and her brother believe that Hamlet is using her to achieve his own personal goals.

In the beginning of the play, Ophelia was like any other obedient young woman during the time. In Understanding Hamlet, Richard Corum shows that Ophelia is obedient. He writes, "Though Hamlet has been courting her, Ophelia willingly obeys her father when he tells her to discourage the prince's advances" (Corum 26). Ophelia obeys her father's demands because it was expected during that time of women to comply with men's wishes. In Hamlet, Ophelia disregards her own feelings towards Hamlet. Ophelia does as she is told:

Ophelia is a very interesting and confused character in William Shakespeare's play Hamlet. She has so many moments where she is hanging onto her sanity by a thread, and one small thing could set her off. Ophelia illustrates character traits leading to her tragic downfall, including innocence, ignorance, and distraught actions.

In the beginning of the play, it is clear through her thoughts and actions that that Ophelia is an obedient person. But upon closer inspection, the audience can see that she is not merely an obedient, but completely dependent and weak character. In fact, her needy nature is unmistakable from the beginning. OPH: “I do not know, my lord, what I should think.” POL: “Marry, I will teach you. Think yourself a baby…” (Act I, Scene III, lines 105-106) Her cruel clashings with Hamlet, which go against her feelings for him,

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

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.

   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.

In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Ophelia is the most static character in the play. Instead of changing through the course of the play, she remains suffering in the misfortunes perpetrated upon her. She falls into insanity and dies a tragic death. Ophelia has issues surviving without a male influence, and her downfall is when all the men in her life abandon her. Hamlet’s Ophelia, is a tragic, insane character that cannot exist on her own.

Ophelia, ever since her introduction, has been introduced to be a sweet and sympathetic person, providing the play with emotional moments, but her death was used as a bait and switch by Shakespeare towards audience members who had expected her to change the play’s somber mood to more hopeful one, which in turn makes the play even more tragic. After she had been visited by an apparently crazed Hamlet, she tells Polonius about the visit, prompting him to believe that the young prince is crazy in love, and goes out to tell the king. After it was explained to Claudius, and Hamlet’s former friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern failed to find the underlying cause of his madness, Polonius makes Ophelia approach Hamlet while he and the king hide and monitor his behavior.

In The Tragedy of Hamlet, Shakespeare developed the story of prince Hamlet, and the murder of his father by the king's brother, Claudius. Hamlet reacted to this event with an internal battle that harmed everyone around him. Ophelia was the character most greatly impacted by Hamlet's feigned and real madness - she first lost her father, her sanity, and then her life. Ophelia, obedient, weak-willed, and no feminist role model, deserves the most pity of any character in the play.

Ophelia is the most one-sided yet consistent out of all the vital characters in Hamlet. She has great potential to be a tragic heroine and overcome the misfortunes forced upon her but instead, she slowly diminishes into insanity following Hamlet’s contradictory treatment towards her, and murder of her father: “She speaks much of her father, says she hears there’s tricks i’th’ world, and hems, and beats her heart,” (Shakespeare, Hamlet, 4.5. 4-5). Ophelia is a young woman, with no womanly guidance to aid her. Her father Polonius, and brother Laertes, care for Ophelia and go to great lengths to preserve her innocence. Her loyalty to her father and brother is out of pure gratitude and appreciation for their concern. She obeys her father and brother’s command not to see or accept any letters from Hamlet, despite her love for him:

Never being able to speak her true thoughts, Ophelia’s “perfection” turns her into someone who never defends herself. As seen later on in the play, these qualities lead to her death, which results in a deep influence on the most important characters in the play, especially Hamlet. Ophelia’s madness symbolizes her true feelings and reactions to every event that has affected her such as her father’s death, and her lover’s as well as brother’s abandonment. One of the most interesting things about the role of Ophelia is that her death is what deepens Laertes’ and Hamlet’s need for revenge. She is the common element that provides a reason for the several deaths that occur at the end of the play.

Ophelia being one of the main characters experienced hardship and battled with her emotions between her father and Hamlet. She experienced an internal conflict of grieving her father’s death by the hands of her lover, Hamlet. Ophelia is used by men throughout the play. The king, Claudius and her father, Polonius both ask her to spy on Hamlet when trying to figure