The Relationship Between Ophelia and Hamlet: William Shakespeare

  In Shakespeare's tragedy, Hamlet, the audience finds a docile, manipulated, scolded, victimized young lady named Ophelia. Ophelia is a foil to Hamlet. Plays have foils to help the audience better understand the more important characters in the play.  The character of Ophelia is necessary so that the audience will give Hamlet a chance to get over his madness and follow his heart.

From historical events such as World War I and World War II to present day women have been playing prominent roles. During the 14th and 15th centuries women had no important roles in their families, they were only used to take care of their families and to use their body for sex for men. A women mostly always needed a man by her side to stay stable and strong, otherwise they are known to be weak without them.

Another time Ophelia was important in Hamlet's life was after not seeing Ophelia for a while Hamlet stumbles upon a grave site being dug in the middle of the woods, but at the time he doesn’t know who for. When Hamlet find out that Ophelia is the one that is being put to rest he starts to go crazy again. He says “I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers, if you added all their love together, couldn’t match mine. What are you going to do for her?” ( V, I, pg.12. lines 247-249). Hamlet is basically trying to say that even if they don’t believe him he really did love Ophelia. Gertrude responded by saying, “This is pure insanity. He’ll be like this for a little while” (V, I, pg. 12 lines 247-249). When Gertrude says this she basically means that he has gone crazy before that this is normal he will calm down soon. Therefor Ophelia played a huge role in Hamlet’s life without necessarily being there all of the time.

Hamlet is a tragic play that is focused on Hamlet’s attempt to try and avenge his father 's death. A huge tragedy of the play surrounds a character Ophelia and Hamlet’s relationship with the young woman. Ophelia made people concerned and uneasy during the “mad scene.” The death of Ophelia was described in the play, but the Queen did narrate on it a little. She could have been a lovesick mad woman, she may had been grieving from the loss of her father, or everything going on in her life may had just finally pushed her to her limits (Maki 1). When Laertes called Ophelia “a document in madness” he is referring to her speech, her singing, and what was emerging from this was suicidal insanity.

I went a little over when I was writing this analysis but I wanted to pack in as much information as I could. I took what I felt were the three major points of this play with women in it. I analyzed how Shakespeare portrayed and meant the two major female characters to be (Ophilia and Gertrude), and an example of the interactions between Ophelia and Hamlet, as they were very consistent throughout the story, and are an interesting but very easy display of societal norms at that time.

Instead he tells his mother that Polonius deserved to be killed. “Hamlet’s passion flames when his mother carelessly calls Claudius Hamlet’s ‘father’, and in rage he kills the eaves dropping Polonius. Madness has transformed a former prince into a killer” (Hamada 64).

It is essential for one to love. Love fuels our souls; it serves as our motivation to persist in what we do best. However, without this incentive of human desire — we’re often left deprived of affection and thus resort to grief, as love can only ultimately lead to loss. The Greek historian Xenophon once said, “Excess of grief for the dead is madness; for it is an injury to the living, and the dead know it not.” Indeed, one loses their sense of sanity after having to have mourned for their loved ones for so long. Such a situation is demonstrated by Shakespeare within his play Hamlet, as characters such as Hamlet as well as Ophelia lose their state of mind after having to overcome the loss of significant figures within their lives. Hamlet, having lost his father, fundamentally drives himself insane trying to avenge upon Claudius. On the other hand, it is often suggested that Ophelia’s persona is shaped by the characteristics of the significant male figures that surround her throughout the course of the play — thus, when she faces the death of her father, the departure of Laertes, as well as the physical loss of her lover,

William Shakespeare’s Hamlet explores the detrimental effects that a parent’s influence can have on their children. The play presents the story of a dead king who has a devastatingly profound effect on his son. The son’s allegiance towards the father locks him tightly into a psychologically binding contract where he becomes morally tainted by his father’s murderous requests. However, the son, Hamlet, is not the only character who’s bound within a relationship. A young maiden, Ophelia, also struggles with being defined by her family and those around her.

After experiencing her father’s death and feeling she had lost the love from Hamlet she became mad. The madness she contained from her father’s death turned into her own. Ophelia is convinced that Hamlet truly loves her, yet he never said he did, until after her death. Hamlet says, “I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers could not with all their quantity of love make up my sum” (Act 5, Scene 1).Therefore, it is evident that Hamlet confessed his love for Ophelia after her death.

Reading from the perspective of a feminist lens allows readers to explore the representation of woman in literature. To expose stereotypes, patriarchal culture and SOMETHING. Reading Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet, a feminist critic may ask who the woman he describes are and what drives them to do what they do? Approaching Ophelia from this perspective opens way for the reader to closely analyze her, and from that, draw certain assumptions on her character. Her madness is an event traditionally said to have been caused by the pain and grief of losing her father, but when one takes a closer look into her relationships with the male characters throughout the play a different conclusion may be drawn; that Ophelia’s madness is directly associated to the sexual pressures present in her life.

Society’s Effect on Hamlet’s Relationship with Ophelia “Men know that women are an overmatch for them, and therefore they choose the weakest or the most ignorant. If they did not think so, they never could be afraid of women knowing as much as themselves. ”- Samuel Johnson In Shakespeare’s famous play Hamlet, Hamlet’s abusive treatment of Ophelia is caused in part by society’s belief that women are the inferior sex.

The play Hamlet consists of many strong male characters with only two main female characters. In the time period of Shakespeare, women were often obedient to their fathers or husbands. Ophelia’s conversations with other characters in the play Hamlet reveal that she is not only obedient, but subservient. She does everything she’s told to do without question. In act 1 scene 3 of Hamlet, Ophelia’s father, Polonius says that Hamlet is going to use her and that he doesn’t actually love her.

When Hamlet reads the letter from Ophelia, he is hurt terribly by her words. The next time she sees Hamlet; she is caught off guard and a bit frightened by his behavior. He was not acting like he usually did, and he acted very bizarre towards her. He held her by the wrists and stared into her eyes, long and hard, then leaves, leaving her intensely unsettled and saddened. After this, she tells her father and he believes that Ophelia’s love may have caused this and that Hamlet was actually in love with her.

“The dramatic life of any play often emerges from what is not said rather than what is.” What this quote means to me is that the information that is not presented or explicitly stated in the text itself is the much more important to the dramatic story rather than the information that is stated in the text. I do agree with this quote because it is true, especially in Hamlet. For example, in Hamlet, we as the reader assume that Ophelia kills herself even though the text never says the Ophelia kills herself. Instead Gertrude enters the scene and explains that Ophelia’s death in a beautiful matter saying that she drowned in the brook. Once Gertrude makes this announcement, Ophelia’s death causes dramatic rise when many people learn that Ophelia has died, especially Laertes who is outraged by the death of his sister.

Ophelia (1852), painting by Millais is adapted from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Shakespeare depicted Ophelia as a representation of death, misery and madness. On the contrary, Ophelia by Millais with its descriptive botanical quality could evoke a positive connotation. The prominent water and the lustrous greenery that tantalizes the senses and allow the viewer to feel his/her consciousness moving beyond Shakespeare’s condemned heroine or Rossetti’s equally condemned lover. In the painting, the water appears to be fresh rather than chilly. The soothing water seems welcoming. The flowers in the painting that are floating are so detailed and fresh that one can believe that they are newly pricked; and aroma smells fresh. The current that so gently flows