Does Hamlet Love Ophelia Analysis

At the beginning of the play Ophelia clearly seems in love with Hamlet and maybe even hopeful that Hamlet feels the same. She tells both her brother and father of the times that Hamlet had declared his love for her and made promises of marriage. Yet during their first encounter during the play Hamlet is cold and condescending towards her, even telling her "Get thee to a nunnery." implying that he will never marry her. The next time Hamlet and Ophelia are together is at the play, during which Hamlet makes obscene and insulting jokes directed at her.

As the story grows deeper, Hamlet shows us that he really did love Ophelia when Hamlet tells Ophelia that “I did love you once” (3.1.131). Hamlet only confesses that he did indeed loved Ophelia, but only when it goes on to says that Hamlet never loved her (Habib, 23). On the

Firstly, their love is clear from the very start of the play. Hamlet writes letters to Ophelia before he knows that Claudius killed his father, and in these letters, he discloses his love for her. In one letter that Ophelia shows to her father Hamlet claims, “Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move, Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love.” (Shakespeare.II.II.124-127) In this poem, Hamlet is letting Ophelia know that whatever happens next he does still love her, and that is something she should never question. Hamlet could be foreshadowing that something will make him pretend he no longer loves her, which ends up being his madness and

“I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers/ could not with all their quantity of love/ make up my sum” (5.1.285-286). Hamlet tells Ophelia that he never did love her, but in all honesty he does still love her. Hamlet is truly insane. When he is talking with Ophelia he is truly mean to her and treats

After a long meditation on the nature of being and death, Hamlet catches sight of Ophelia. As she attempts to return some of the remembrances that Hamlet gave when courting her, Hamlet caustically questions Ophelia’s honesty. He denies ever having given Ophelia anything and continues to erratically claim that he loved her once before declaring that he never loved her at all. The problem here is that no one knows the exact intent of Hamlet as he claims to love Ophelia amidst a number of happenings that questions how genuine his love towards Ophelia. Not only does he doubt her honesty because he knew about her plan with Polonius and Claudius to eavesdrop on him, he is unsure of her purity and her love for him and he tells her, “get thee to a nunnery” rather than give birth to sinners ( ). Increasingly agitated, Hamlet condemns marriage itself, saying that no more marriages should be allowed, before exiting the room and leaving Ophelia in shambles. Looking deeper into the behavior that Hamlet demonstrates in this scene, there is completely no love that he shares with Ophelia. In a way, Hamlet seems convinced that Ophelia is the love of her life, but yet he has the behavior of insulting her and not giving her the priority that she needs. His character portrays a man who cannot be connected to his self and this leads him to a number of problems as regards the way he treats Ophelia. It is not just the feelings that Hamlet has towards Ophelia that describes his love for her but his actions say a lot on the feeling that is in the inside. Reaching to an extent that he can

In Act II, scene 1, Ophelia tells her father how Hamlet appeared to Ophelia in a distressed way. She reveals how he studied her face then just walked away without looking back. She even said that she fears that Hamlet has gone ‘mad’ for her love. She is saying that she knows, herself, that Hamlet cannot live without her love. If Hamlet had not truly loved Ophelia, then why did her brother and father want her to stay away from him? Easily enough, they knew of the budding romance between the two but refused to believe it. The two men believed that Hamlet was using Ophelia and that keeping her away from him would stop the love that continued to grow. It was a terrible thing to do because that helped further Hamlet belief that Ophelia was working against him as was every other character in the play. Also, take the love letters for example. In a line of one of the love letters, “never doubt I love...” (II.ii.127), Hamlet basically says that no matter what is going on outside of their relationship, no matter what everyone is telling her, the love he has for Ophelia is real. The love letters are very significant because they show Hamlet’s honest and true feelings towards Ophelia before all of the chaos started. The love notes can be considered examples of the pure and unadulterated love that Hamlet showcased to Ophelia before anyone had a chance to try and sway their feelings in any other way than the way it is supposed to be. Another act of Hamlet’s true love towards Ophelia is showed when the scene Hamlet caused at Ophelia’s gravesite is taken into account. Ophelia committed suicide, “The unresolvable conflict of loyalties—to Polonius and to Hamlet—will ultimately drive her mad” (Shapiro.). At first, Hamlet was talking to a gravedigger, not knowing that the grave that the gravedigger was digging belonged to Ophelia. Hamlet has yet to find out that Ophelia was not alive. When Hamlet realized that the grave was,

Throughout the entire play, Hamlet’s love for Ophelia is questioned. What Hamlet is really doing is trying to throw off the other characters and make it seem like he does not love Ophelia, even though he really does. Hamlet did not want Ophelia to become involved in case Claudius decided to get revenge on Hamlet. Hamlet shows his love for Ophelia when he confesses to her that he loves her, when he tells her to go to a nunnery to protect her, when he sends her the letter, and when he finds out that she has died. Although many could argue that Hamlet never loved Ophelia, he was just trying to throw everyone else off. There is a great deal of evidence proving that his love was

   In Hamlet, we are introduced to the complexities of a man who is struggling to murder his uncle while trying to understand his mother's motives. His inner turmoil has left him emotionally unavailable and completely disenchanted with humanity in general.

The play Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, looks at the issue of madness and how it effects the characters of the play. Madness can be looked at from very different perspectives, such as strong and uncontrollable emotions, a person’s desires, and also a persons mental stability. Throughout the play, the audience is questioning the sanity of the main character, Hamlet, as he goes on his quest for revenge. The people around him also show signs of madness, such as Ophelia and Claudius, but in different forms. Existentialist philosopher Friedrich Nietzche says, “There is always some madness in love. But there is also some reason in madness.” What Nietzche is saying is that when you are in love with someone or something, there is always a little

Hamlet confirmed that he did love Ophelia when he told her to go to a nunnery. Although it is a harsh statement, he tried to throw everyone else off so he had to make it seem like he never loved her. Throughout his letter he mentioned that everything else around her may not be true but his love is real. Hamlet explained that Ophelia was too naive and if Polonius read the letters, he had to act mad to protect her. Near the end of the session, Hamlet described the scene in the graveyard and how he still proved his love for Ophelia. His behaviour changed from extremely upset to more relaxed and reasoned.

     Ophelia describes Hamlet as 'the courtier's soldier, scholar's eye, tongue and sword, Th'expectancy and rose of fair state, the glass of fashion and the mould of form, Th'observed of all observers (Act 3 Scene 1) He is the ideal man. But, after his madness and the death of her father she sees him as 'a noble mind o'er thrown!' (Act 3 Scene 1). Ophelia suffers from Hamlet's disillusionment; his attitude to her in Act 3 Scene 1 is hard to explain.  His faith in women was shattered by his mother's marriage and it is also possible that Hamlet knows that Ophelia has been ordered to seek him out- yet how strong could their love have been as there is little excuse for the

Throughout the play, Hamlet and Ophelia have a very strong love connection. They loved each other and wanted to eventually get married. Hamlet and Ophelia hit some bumps in the road in their relationship but they always secretly wanted to be together. In Act 1, Scene 3, It was hard for Ophelia to comprehend when Polonius told her that he thought Hamlet's love for her wasn’t real, but she didn’t know what to believe. When Hamlet could no longer see Ophelia he began to get mad a frustrated, to add on also that he was going crazy over his own father's death.

Ophelia is in love with Hamlet. She shares herself with him and is beginning a relationship, she wants to be with hamlet and believes he loves her "My lord, he hath importuned me with his love in honorable fashion"(pg 17 line 110). Polonius instructs Ophelia to stop seeing Hamlet. Polonius states that Hamlet doesn’t really love her and is only with her for one thing, and as soon as he gets enough he will want no more.

Hamlet is without any reservations, one of Shakespeare's most mystifying plays. Although the play has a concise story, it is filled with many uncertainties relating to different issues behind the plot. The reader is left with many uncertainties about the true feelings of prince Hamlet. One question in particular is, did Hamlet really love Ophelia? This dispute can be reinforced either way, however I believe Hamlet was truly in love with Ophelia. Support for my decision comes from Hamlet's treatment towards Ophelia is shown throughout the play, but especially in Act 3, Scene 2, and at Ophelia's grave in Scene 1 of Act 5.

His inconsistent treating of Ophelia eventually drives her to insanity. The actual recognition of his love for Ophelia can only come when Hamlet realizes that she is dead, and free from her tainted womanly trappings “I lov’d Ophelia”. This is without doubt one of the most villainous qualities of Hamlet.