Is Hamlet Responsible For Ophelia's Death In 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.

By his cockle hat and staff and his sandal shoon.” (V. IV. 23-26) This shows how Ophelia has became crazy over Hamlet’s inability to show affection towards her and him rejecting her. Ophelia’s madness soon spirals into her commuting suicide by drowning herself in the river. This can be linked to Nietzche’s statement that there is some madness in love, as Ophelia’s love for Hamlet caused her to become crazy. Hamlet also shows signs of madness due to his relationship with Ophelia. Throughout the play it is unknown to the audience if Hamlet truly has feelings for Ophelia. It is not until Act V that the audience becomes aware of Hamlet’s true feelings when he finds out about Ophelia’s death, Hamlet states, “ I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers could not with all their quantity of love make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?” (V.I. 255-257) This shows how Hamlet become mad with rage and sorrow as he hears of her death, finally revealing his true feelings. This relates to Nietzche’s statement that there is some madness in love, as Hamlet has not been able to show his true feeling for Ophelia, and once he become aware of her death he is filled with sorrow. This madness is shown when Hamlet develops a plan to fool everyone to thinking he is crazy.

There are a variety of factors that can contribute to one’s demise. In the context of the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare many possibilities can be identified that pertain to Ophelia’s sudden death. Ophelia’s death was triggered by her mental breakdown due to the loss of her father. In the midst of her inner turmoil, her depression worsens as she learns that Hamlet, the man she loves departs to England. When she dies, Gertrude reports her death to Claudius and Laertes. Gertrude, The Queen of Denmark, is responsible for Ophelia’s death. By looking at Gertrude’s over protective relationship with Hamlet, her lack of initiative on the situations around her in a time of tragedy, as well as her vivid account of Ophelia’s death, evidence that

Midway through Hamlet, Ophelia is well under the control of Polonius and Hamlet. They are both manipulating and using her as a pawn as to get what they want and she has little to no say about it. Act 2, scene 1 serves as a turning point, as it is when Ophelia begins to realize the manipulation she faces at the hands of both her father and Hamlet, and that she can only truly gain her freedom when she herself descends into madness. Polonius’ manipulation, Hamlet’s control and Ophelia’s own thoughts and actions demonstrate her descent, and the aftermath.

He knew that his Uncle Claudius was guilty to the murder of his brother. While trying to get revenge for his father, he killed Polonius by stabbing him through the curtain. He thought Polonius was Claudius behind the curtain. After killing Polonius, Hamlet doesn’t react in the way a normal person would. Hamlet hides Polonius under the stairs. This act of madness leads to the death of Ophelia. Ophelia drowns herself from being stressed out and overwhelmed by the death of her father. The killing of Polonius makes Laertes want revenge on Hamlet for his father. Hamlet’s act of madness contributes to a lot of deaths throughout the

Even in death, she displays yielding and passive behavior: Ophelia does not have the intention of committing suicide, though she fails to save herself from sinking. She is essentially a casualty of a society that enforces unreasonable expectations for its women and is never afforded the liberty of thinking for herself and making her own judgments and decisions. Her passive death represents the lack of control she has over her own person and the dependence she has developed on other people. Therefore, Ophelia is mentally unstable and not capable of realizing that her life is on the line. Ophelia is trained by the men in her life to be compliant with their demands, preventing her from practicing her autonomy and enabling her to be easily manipulated by Hamlet.

Ophelia is Hamlet’s love interest throughout the entire play. However, in an attempt to be strategic, Hamlet feigns insanity in order to be deceiving and in turn breaks Ophelia's heart. His sudden disinterest towards her coupled with her father Polonius and brother Laertes’ commands to stay away from Hamlet composes a dire internal conflict within Ophelia's mind. She is torn between her undying love for Hamlet versus her desire to be an obedient daughter and sister. In addition, Hamlet unintentionally murders Polonius rather than Claudius, which also adds to Ophelia's insanity. To make matter worse, Ophelia has no mother figure within her life. So taken all together, she is stuck in a constant battle within herself with nobody who is there for her. “I hope all will be well. We must be patient/ but I cannot choose but weep/ to think they would lay him/ i' th' cold ground” (Hamlet v, iv). This quote from Ophelia demonstrates her deep sorrow towards her father's death, as well as the start of her path to insanity. Her lack of a maternal figure leaves her with nobody to discuss her feelings and troubles with. Because of this constant battle within her life, Ophelia finds herself in a confrontation with her emotions, which ends in her official decision of suicide. Which one could argue makes her decisive in the end which may be true, but her internal struggle leading to her choice of suicide is what makes her a great example of a character struggling with uncertainty during times of

This, in turn, exploits Hamlet’s similar flaw of ego and furthers the conflict, but what’s more, it illustrates Claudius’ sheer audacity and lack of repentance. He continues to try to cover up the sin and appease Hamlet into complacency rather than confess and ask for forgiveness. In a mark of pure arrogance, Claudius tells Hamlet to “throw to earth / This unprevailing woe and think of us / As of a father”, conceitedly requesting that Hamlet merely forget the murder and replace his father with the murderer himself (I, ii, 110-112). Similarly, instead of directly confronting Hamlet about his mental condition, the king more or less hires Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to spy on the prince, again cementing his smug mindset. The king does not believe he can be caught or, rather, that Hamlet is competent enough to figure out his plan and foil him. Claudius, too, thinks only of himself after Hamlet’s inadvertent killing of Polonius, pondering “how shall this bloody deed be answered? / It will be laid to us” instead of considering the ramifications of the murder with respect to Hamlet (4.1.17-18). The other two paper-thin traps the king hatches only reinforce his failure to see beyond the apparent; his attempt to deport Hamlet to England and have him killed reeks of treachery and, luckily, Hamlet realizes the king’s subterfuge, crushing the plot and flipping it back on him. Claudius remains steadfast in his efforts to remove Hamlet, going so far as to set up a

Not only is Ophelia's death marked much less significant than the other male deaths noted in the previously mentioned articles, but Ophelia’s death is articulated as a passive accident, one that happened to occur, to no avail. Every other death in the play is met with vigorous analysis and criticism, unphased by the death of Ophelia, inadvertently caused by men. Ophelia is also described as “mermaid-like” adding to the previously set notion that women are sexual objects- even at death. At this point of the play, Hamlet proclaims in a bipolar and seemingly fraudulent manner that he has always loved Ophelia (although he ordered her to “get thee to a nunnery” and was the root of her abrupt madness and suicide), while Laertes threatens that he loved Ophelia more. The attention and passion are still not recognized and respected with Ophelia even after her death but is used as a game between two men to satisfy their guilt and build their ego, competing for the love of Ophelia that was only disrespected when she was

Hamlet soon resolves to take action. He sets up a play to trap Claudius so he can find out if the ghost was telling the truth. This is his intelligence and craft. He will not impulsively commit murder because of the word of a ghost who seemed to be his dead father. When he meets with his mother later, he is very angry and emotional and kills Polonius believing it was Claudius. Hamlet shows himself to be a man of action before thought in this case. He is rather cold that he is not terribly sorry about this accidental death but does show genuine concern for his mother which leads him to fits of intense emotion.

After killing Polonius, Hamlet feel no guilt at all, he acts indifferently. The audience can evidence how appearances and reality come back into play when Queen Gertrude cries out, “O, what a rash and bloody deed is this” (Act 3, scene 4, page 106). Hamlet, responds without repentance, “A bloody deed – almost as bad, good mother, as kill a king, and marry with his brother.” (Act 3, scene 4, page 106). After this statement made by Hamlet, there is a twist in the scene. Instead of the scene being centered towards the death of Polonius, it becomes centered towards Hamlet’s obsession and hatred towards his mother for betraying him and his father by the rapid and opportune marriage to

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 experiences alienation throughout Hamlet, although she ends her life with suicide, unlike Hamlet. The queen places blame on Ophelia for Hamlet's madness and states: "...for your part, Ophelia, I do wish that your good beauties be the happy cause for Hamlet's madness..." (Shakespeare 140). The queen lightens her feelings of guilt for the murder and places the guilt upon Ophelia. Gertrude, the queen, knows that she has committed something wrong with the plot of killing Old Hamlet and therefore finds an outlet through Ophelia. Also, to try to discover Hamlet's cause of insanity, Claudius and Polonius use Ophelia to get closer to him and find out that perhaps they could conclude that his

As a result of spending her life under the protection of her father and his orders, due to her submissive nature, Ophelia remains naive and unaware of the deceit and bitterness surrounding her which renders her incapable of facing the harsh realities of life once her father dies and Hamlet leaves her. After the death of her father and with the absence of both Laertes and Hamlet from her life at the time, Ophelia is driven to madness and Gertrude explains it the King: “She speaks much of her father, says she hears there’s tricks i ' the ' world, and hems, and beats her heart, spurns enviously at straws, speaks things in doubt that carry but half sense.” Finally seeing the grim reality of her surroundings without her father to hide behind, Ophelia loses her sanity and eventually end her own life as she no longer knows how to lead an independent life. In conclusion, Ophelia is portrayed as a puppet on strings being pulled around by the males in her life, making all her decisions and controlling what she can and can’t do, and once all the men are gone, she no longer able to function on her own and she ends her life as a result.