Ophelia's Madness

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Thesis Statement: The origin of Ophelia’s madness is rendered through examination of her relationships with her father Polonius, her brother, Laertes, and her lover Hamlet.

Ophelia was such an innocent character. She was young and naïve. Ophelia was faced with many dilemmas. She was in a relationship with Prince Hamlet, who was very distracted and eventually went mad himself. Ophelia’s madness started with an overbearing, over protective father. He controlled Ophelia and used her with out thinking of her feelings, “I must tell you, you do not understand yourself so clearly…What is

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.

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,

She is casted as a very Intense, profound character because of her situations whose voice goes unheard and actions are controlled by her father Polonius and Hamlet. In Scene 7 act 4, Gertrude informs Claudius and Laertes that Ophelia drowned in a brook. Prior to this, Ophelia is described as a “sister driven to desperate terms” you can say that she is playing the stereotypical role of the damsel in distress. Ophelia genuinely needs Hamlet to love her. She is embedded the idea from her own tretury that without him she can't survive. We see that Ophelia becomes an emotional mess when Hamlet tells her he doesn’t love her. Her submissive, reliance on men tells us that she is weak without support, but she will obey what her father says She acts as a puppet for the people who are dominant to her. They control her and mold her to what they want her to do and be. It’s really interesting how uncaring and unsupportive Polonius is towards her. Even to her own blood, she is treated with the utter most disrespect. This clearly tells the audience how women were portrayed in the Elizabethan era.

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.

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

"Her whole character is that of simple unselfish affection" (Bradley). In comparing the characters in the play Hamlet, Ophelia’s purity and delicate beauty make her comparable to a flower. Ophelia signifies the nature and righteousness of the Elizabethan Era, with her willow trees and flowers visible, and epitome of a goddess. Throughout most of the play, Shakespeare uses Ophelia to enable other characters in reaching their goals. Elizabethan society created impossible expectations for women, considered to be the weaker sex, exploited, and in need of protection. With no exception to this expectation, Ophelia is mistreated, scorned and ultimately shamed by the men in her life. Ophelia is the most innocent victim of Hamlet’s revenge in Shakespeare’s play “Hamlet”.

Ophelia was in a bad situation throughout the play, leaving her without much control of her life. She was not able to fix things between her and Hamlet because Polonius, her father, prohibited her from seeing him. She was subject to the rule of her father above all else. This contributes to Hamlets “act” of being crazy. She blames herself for Hamlet's