The Abuse of Ophelia in "Hamlet" Essay

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:

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.

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 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

There are volumes of critical analyses devoted to William Shakespeare's Hamlet. As the title indicates, Hamlet is the main character of the play, but there are other characters who are also important to the plot. So much attention has been given to Hamlet's antics that characters such as Ophelia remain relatively unexamined. Ophelia is a key figure in the play, and to understand her reactions to the patriarchal society in which she lives through her relationships with the men in her life adds more depth to the play. Ophelia's character is revealed through her relationships with her father, Polonius, her brother, Laertes, and her lover, Hamlet, and their characters in turn are revealed through their

This is the woman she might have become – warm, tolerant and imaginative. Instead she becomes jagged, benighted and imaginative. . . .Ophelia is made mad not only by circumstance but by something in herself. A personality forced into such deep hiding that it has seemed almost vacant, has all the time been so painfully open to impressions that they now usurp her reflexes and take possession of her. She has loved, or been prepared to love, the wrong man; her father has brought disaster on himself, and she has no mother: she is terribly lonely. (73-74)

   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.

However, I wonder if Ophelia’s drastic actions stem from something other than obedience-- such as her character. Her compliance seems to go deeper than her trying to please her father, and her thoughts and actions show what a weak character she really is. For instance, when Hamlet bullies her and tells her to retreat to a nunnery where she could no longer harm anyone, she does not defend herself. Instead, after he stalks away from her, she is filled with self-pity. “O woe is me t’have seen what I have seen/ see what I see…” (Act III, Scene I, lines 154-155) Ophelia does not appear to be a strong enough person to come to her own defense, even when Hamlet is mocking everything that she is. Her “woe is me” shame comes from the fact that she is rarely reprimanded since she always strives to please. Furthermore, when Polonius dies, Ophelia loses her primary guidance and, instead of trying her hand at thinking for herself, she appeals to her brother for help in solving her problems. “My brother shall know of it/ and so I thank you for your good counsel…” (Act IV, Scene V, line 69) She recognizes that she is not strong enough to survive by herself without constant leadership and direction.

Especially after finding out that her once boyfriend had killed her loving father, “I would/ give you some violets, but they withered all when/ my father died” (4.5.207-209). She knows she made a mistake but yet she can’t forgive herself, for the events that happened. “There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance./ I pray you, love, remember” (4.5.199-200), We could say that insanity has definitely taken over Ophelia only because of Prince Hamlet and her father's death but because she doesn't know what the true meaning/ feeling of love really is, and she desperately wants it. Ophelia’s insanity drives her mind to places she would never imagine, “...she chanted snatches of old lauds,/ As one incapable of her own distress” (4.7.202-203). There’s a point in her insanity when all she wants is to end everything, she is convinced that Prince Hamlet would never forgive/ be able to love her ever again and her father being dead make his love for her disappear as well, so at this point she feels alone and not wanted. “As we have warranty. Her death was doubtful” (5.1.234). Her death was expected but not in the way she did it. Her resort was the water, the way the whole world just fades above you and the warm feeling you get when your mind leaves and enters

Overwhelmed by outside forces and her repressed love for Hamlet, Ophelia is truly a sad and remorseful character in this play, an innocent victim with little essence or depth. An evident victimized woman, ruled by her Renaissance sense of romantic love, it can further be argued that Ophelia was extremely ambiguous. She was too incompetent to decide what she really desired in life. Because she falls in love with Hamlet at a very young age she cannot truly comprehend what love is all about, even though there is strong evidence that Ophelia had sexual relations with Hamlet. Hamlet emphasizes the hypocrisy of his words

Ophelia, from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, is an innocent young woman who lives a fairly happy life. She has a loving father and brother, as well as a strapping young prince after her heart. Unfortunately, these men are also the cause of her plunge into insanity and her eventual death. Her father and brother both forbid her from seeing or speaking to Hamlet for fear of him using her, taking her virginity, and then throwing her away. This reinforces the label of women as property instead of people and further confirms that Ophelia has no control over her body, her relationships, or her choices. It also displays her complete obedience to her father because when he forbids her to fraternize with Hamlet, she replies, “I shall obey, my lord” (1.4.136). Ophelia doesn’t have the audacity to stand up to any of the men in her life, nor the intelligence to form or voice any opinions of her own.

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

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.

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 William Shakespeare’s Hamlet: Prince of Denmark, Ophelia is a passive woman. She went through her life just letting whatever happened to her happen. Her father, Polonius, was a controlling father, like most fathers of that time. Her boyfriend, Prince Hamlet, is insane and cruel. With these two men controlling her life more than anyone else it made her rely on both of them being there. Ophelia grew to rely on people telling her what to do. Ophelia’s mental stability deteriorates because Hamlet rejects her and her father is killed by Hamlet.