Ophelia In Hamlet

In the play Hamlet, the character Ophelia appears to play multiple roles. Ophelia is represented as an obedient fragile character, who appears to be an emotional medium to the audience in the play. Ophelia is significant in for many other reasons as well, as she is used throughout the play as a sort of tool by both the characters as well as Shakespeare himself.

The Character of Ophelia in Hamlet Ophelia is a beautiful and simple-minded woman, easily molded by the more powerful opinions and desires of others. The thoughts of her father and her brother influenced her the most. The love letters from Hamlet also swayed her opinions and confused her mind. Ophelia wasn't able to realize herself because of all the pressures exerted on her to be something she's not. That weakness of mind and will, which permitted her obedience to her father and thus destroyed her hope for Hamlet's love, finally resulted in her insanity and death.

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 was a pawn, nothing more, which was used by those that supposedly loved her for their own purposes. She was used by her father to drive Hamlet to madness, as he thought. Hamlet used her to convince Polonius and others that he was mad. Ophelia eventually looses both of these men, which is what drives her to insanity, possibly because the two biggest "influences" of her life have disappeared.

Ophelia as a Foil to Hamlet 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.

Hamlet and Ophelia 1. Plays have foils to help the audience understand important characters in the play. Foils are minor characters that have similarities and differences with a more important character in the play. Sometimes the minor character is just there for the character to talk to; this is the basis for being a foil. In the play "Hamlet," [Titles] by William Shakespeare, the character Ophelia is a foil to Hamlet.

Ophelia says the quote above to Polonius to describe her previous encounter with Hamlet, which is used to used to introduce the theme of madness into the play. Before their encounter, Hamlet was confronted by his father’s ghost telling him that he was killed by his brother and he wants Hamlet to get revenge. This revelation has deeply affected Hamlet as shown by what Ophelia says he looks like when he approached her. Hamlet had “his doublet all unbraced” and “his stockings fouled, Ungartered, and down-gyved to his ankle”. This physical imagery shows what Hamlet feels inside, distressed. Also, the word “gyved” gives the reader an imagery of shackles, which can lead the reader to believe that Hamlet is now a prisoner to his father’s ghost and

"Motherless and completely circumscribed by the men around her, Ophelia has been shaped to conform to external demands, to reflect other 's desires." (Dane) Through both the misogyny of the time period and the overbearing males in Ophelia 's environment, Shakespeare took a character that could have had some depth and complexity through these environmental factors and flattened her character into this one dimensional, fragile damsel in distress whose sole purpose is to portray Hamlet and the rest of the men in her life as dominant and strong males. Through analyzing her dialogue and actions towards these men it becomes clear that Ophelia isn 't this innocent and naive songbird with a character flaw, and instead a woman who can 't fight against the males in her life, instead just deals with them in a quiet manner.

Throughout Hamlet, Shakespeare makes it evident that Ophelia is very unstable. She continuously changes her mind about the way she feels. Laertes and Polonius command her to do things that she does not agree with, but she does them with no argument. Afraid to stand up for herself, she stands back and watches everyone else control her life. In Shakespeare's Hamlet, Ophelia is treated as a marionette with her strings in the hands of the people around her; however, Kenneth Branagh portrays her as independent and innocent, ignoring Shakespeare's representation of her as feeble-minded through complete male dominance in her thoughts and actions, her indecisiveness, and digression into madness.

According to CliffsNotes, she did not have a mother figure; therefore, she was completely under the rule of men the entire play. For example, Polonius demanded that she stopped seeing Hamlet, which she replied with, “I shall obey, my lord.” Her brother warned her not to pursue premarital relations with Hamlet as well, telling her that no man would want a “deflowered” woman. She did exactly what she was told; Ophelia listened to her family about avoiding Hamlet and became a device for Polonius’s plans to spy on Hamlet. However; Hamlet knew that Ophelia was helping her dad spy on him, and he “accused her of (and all women) of being a ‘breeder of sinners’ and orders Ophelia to a ‘nunnery’"(Shmoop Editorial Team). Despite her obedience to her family, Ophelia was torn between two roles: being a good daughter or falling for Hamlet’s promise of marriage. She was sure that Hamlet loved her. Unfortunately, this feeling faded as soon as Hamlet began insulting her crudely and driving her to insanity. “To Hamlet, she is a sexual object, a corrupt and deceitful lover” ("Character Analysis: Ophelia"). After all of the pressure that was put on Ophelia, she snapped and went insane “as a result of patriarchal pressure and abuse” (Shmoop Editorial Team). Shakespeare brilliantly uses her death as a metaphor for the misogynistic binds that broke her. When she dies, the reader is told she died from drowning. Ophelia's clothing had