How Is Ophelia Portrayed In Hamlet

Hamlet is a true shakespearean tragedy, and characters spiraling into madness is not uncommon. One of the few female characters in the play is Ophelia, and throughout the play she slowly becomes more and more mad. Ophelia first lost her brother, Laertes when he left for France, then she lost her father, Polonius when he was killed by Hamlet. She is then only left with Hamlet to talk to, but Hamlet is acting strangely towards her. She believes that Hamlet is supposed to be with her, but Hamlet thinks otherwise, so she now has lost another person she that she loved. Losing all those people means that Ophelia has no one to talk to, and her feelings are being ignored, and her voice is only heard until after she has died. Ophelia’s madness is not her

She loves Hamlet, and the story implies that they had sex and because of that, Ophelia expects Hamlet to be with her. Instead of either choosing to be with Ophelia or choosing not to, throughout the whole story Hamlet is either in love with Ophelia, or is making crude comments towards her and making her feel uncomfortable. Hamlet is constantly insulting or rejecting her, for example when he says, “Get thee to a nunnery” (3.1.131), he is rejecting her and then goes on to speak about how he hopes she is chaste, as he does not think she should have children. Ophelia is clearly upset by his comments as well as confused because earlier he had declared his love, as mentioned before. Right before Hamlet rejects her, Ophelia expresses her distress saying, “And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,/That sucked the honey of his music vows,/Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,…/out of time and harsh” (3.1.169-171; 172). At this point, Hamlet is also descending into madness and both her confidants are gone. If Ophelia had someone to talk to about the situation she was in and guide her, perhaps she would have been able to deal with the complexity of it