Ophelia is one of the main characters in the play, Hamlet, as the daughter of the chief counsellor of the king, Polonius, the sister of Laertes and the romantic interest of Hamlet. Ophelia is one of the very few female characters in the play and Ophelia and Queen Gertrude are both used to be contrasted. Ophelia is a loyal character, which the opposite of Queen Gertrude because Gertrude betrayed her husband, King Hamlet, by poisoning him and marrying his brother, now King Claudius. She is a loyal character and the prime example is shown by the way she acts with her father. She clearly has so much respect for him and values whatever he says to her. For instance, in Act One, Scene 3, when Ophelia was talking to Laertes about Hamlet, and then their father comes in, Polonius tells Ophelia: “For Lord Hamlet, Believe so much in him that he is young, And with a larger tether may he walk than may be given you. In few, Ophelia, Do not believe his vows, for they are brokers not of that dye which their investments show, but mere implorators of unholy suits, breathing like sanctified and pious bawds, and the better to beguile. This is for all: I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth, have you so slander any moment leisure, as to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet. Look to’t, I charge you. Come your ways”. (Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3, 24-35) Then, to which Ophelia replies: “I shall obey, my lord.”(Act 1, Scene 3, 36) She is clearly obeying her father when he tells her that she should not be seeing Hamlet ever again. It can also be inferred that she is naïve because throughout the entire part of their conversation, she thought that Hamlet was being totally honest with her and she never considered what kind of person Hamlet might ...
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...f his fathers, Hamlet was also betrayed. He kept wondering how his mother can do this to him and Hamlet plots revenge against the King; the king is also plotting revenge against Hamlet. Hamlet is saddened by his father’s death, but what saddened him even more was that his mother would do such thing like betray his father. However, the death of her father was the primary reason why she went mad. She didn’t go mad because of anything else. She was deeply saddened by her father’s death because he was the only one she looked up to and whom she say as her shining light, so to speak, but now that light has gone away and she saw no point in continuing on with life. Ophelia also resented Hamlet after that because she knew that he killed her father, but she did not feel like she should plot revenge against Hamlet for killing her father.
Works Cited
Hamlet by Shakespeare
Ophelia is a character in Hamlet that is chronically faithful to everyone else but herself. Ophelia is deeply in love with Hamlet, and she is certain that he loves her as well. This is clear from the assertions she makes in Hamlet’s defense: “My lord, he hath importuned me with love in honest fashion. And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord, with almost all the holy vows of heaven” (1795). Ophelia’s downfall emerges when she doubts her own feelings and beliefs about Hamlet, upon instruction and advice from her brother and father. Ophelia, a confident and intelligent woman, begins to rely on others to tell her what to think and how to act. “I do not know, my lord, what I should think” (1795). Upon Polonius request, and going against her own hearts desires, she starts to avoid Hamlet. “No, my good lord, but, as you did command, I did repel his letters and denied his access to me” (1806). By doing what her father advises and wishes Ophelia is no longer capable of making decisions for herself. The loss of Hamlet’s love and the death of her father leave her with confusion and doubts about her future. “Well, Go...
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.
Ophelia is portrayed as a sensitive, fragile woman. Easily overpowered and controlled by her brother and father, Ophelia is destined to be weak. Ophelia’s brother, Laertes, warns and pushes Ophelia to stay away from Hamlet and is further supported by their father Polonius. “Polonius enters and adds his warning to those of Laertes. He orders Ophelia not to spend time with Hamlet or even talk to him. Ophelia promises to obey” (“Hamlet” 95). Ophelia’s obedience to her father’s directions prove the side she
The life of Hamlet is without a doubt very interesting, he suffers from unfortunate events in his time that are often major blows to his ego. His father dies while he’s away at college, Hamlet is next in line to be king until his “uncle-father” steals it from him; but it is to be known his “uncle-father” would not have stolen it if his “aunt-mother” hadn’t allowed it. It’s very apparent from the beginning of the play that he is very well obsessed with his mother and her doings. He harasses, humiliates, and abuses her because she has done such an unforgivable act by marrying Claudius. His thoughts and feelings towards his mother are very strong and well known, he even describes the odd pair as “little more than kin and less than kind.” That’s not all with Hamlet; his mother remarrying is just the tip of the iceberg so deeply rooted in the ocean of his emotions. His relationship with Ophelia is twisted, Hamlet goes through episodes of
Ophelia was driven mad by the death of her father Polonius and how Hamlet betrayed her love with his own wave of madness which was just an act. In her madness, Ophelia talks about her father and his death and about the “Tricks in the world” (terrible things that happen to people). Ophelia’s madness was also the extent of her being used by her father so he could spy on Hamlet to see if he was truly crazy and then by Hamlet when he claimed he no longer loved her and that he didn’t send her any letters (remembrances). Ophelia’s speech and her fragments of songs are unsensible. Her song was about her father’s death “He is gone, He is gone” (4.5.220), and a maiden who is tricked into losing her virginity with a false promise of love and the possibility of marriage. “To be your valentine, then up he rose and donned his clothes and duped the chamber door” (4.5.56-58)
During Hamlet, Polonius and Laertes use Ophelia for their own self-gain not taking her feelings in consideration. In the article “Jephthah's Daughter's Daughter: Ophelia,” Cameron Hunt reveals that Polonius disregards Ophelia’s wants for his ...
As the play opened, Hamlet and Ophelia appeared as lovers experiencing a time of turbulence. Hamlet had just returned home from his schooling in Saxony to find that his mother had quickly remarried her dead husband's brother, and this gravely upset him. Hamlet was sincerely devoted to the idea of bloodline loyalty and sought revenge upon learning that Claudius had killed his father. Ophelia, though it seems her relationship with Hamlet is in either the developmental stage or the finalizing stage, became the prime choice as a lure for Hamlet. Laertes inadvertently opened Ophelia up to this role when he spoke with Ophelia about Hamlet before leaving for France. He allowed Polonius to find out about Hamlet's courtship of Ophelia, which led to Polonius' misguided attempts at taking care of Ophelia and obeying the king's command to find the root of Hamlet's problems. Ophelia, placed in the middle against her wishes, obeyed her father and brother's commands with little disagreement. The only time she argued was when Laertes advised her against making decisions incompatible with the expectations of Elizabethan women. Ophelia tells him, in her boldest lines of the play:
When reading the text, one can comprehend that Ophelia is caught in the middle between two opposite sides. Her family (father and brother) believe that Hamlet is a womanizer rather then the philosopher that he is. They also believe that he will use her in order to achieve his own purposes, and that he would take her precious virginity only to discard it because he would never be her husband. But, Ophelia's heart mesmerized by Hamlets cunning linguistics is set on the fact that Hamlet truly loves her or loved her, even though he swears he never did. In the eye of her father and brother, she will always be a pure, wholesome girl, an eternal virgin in a sense, (due to a parents nature to always see their offspring as a child) they want her to ascend into her stereotypical role in life as a vessel of morality whose sole purpose of existence is to be a obedient wife and a committed mother. However, to Hamlet she is simply an object used to satisfy and fulfill his sexual needs. He also seems to hold her at a distant which suggests that he may...
“Pretty Ophelia,” as Claudius calls her, is the most innocent victim of Hamlet’s revenge in Shakespeare’s play Hamlet. Hamlet has fallen in love with Ophelia after the death of his father. Ophelia “sucked the honey of his music vows” and returned Hamlet’s affection. But when her father had challenged Hamlet’s true intentions, Ophelia could only say: “I do not know, my lord, what I should think.” Ophelia was used to relying on her father’s directions and she was also brought up to be obedient. This allowed her to only accept her father’s views that Hamlet’s attention towards her was only to take advantage of her and to obey her father’s orders not to permit Hamlet to see her again.
In Hamlet Ophelia is controlled by her father Polonius who is trying to igain more insight into Hamlet’s behavior. Polonius uses Ophelia as a pawn in his schemes to involving his investigation Hamlet’s craziness. She has no opinions or say in his plans. Polonius uses the advantage of having a daughter to try to investigate Hamlet. He tells Claudius the king about his plan “I have a daughter- have while she is mine-Who in her duty and obedience, mark” (Scene 2 Act 2). Polonius suggests to the king that they should use her to try to learn more about Hamlet’s crazy behavior. Polonius does not consult Ophelia about his plan because he is the head of the family and it is her duty to obey her father. Polonius shows his dominance over her, she cannot argue with him about being involved because she is inferior to him. Polonius asserts himself as a dominant male figure in her life. He controls, and manipulates her for his own personal gain. Polonius formulates Ophelia’s behavior and her opinions through his manipulation and his dominance over her. She becomes a pawn in the king and his schemes and is not able to assert herself as a character with opinions ...
Hamlet provides his own self-torture and does fall victim to melancholia and grief - his madness is feigned. They each share a common connection: the loss of a parental figure. Hamlet loses his father as a result of a horrible murder, as does Ophelia. Her situation is more severe because it is her lover who murders her father and all of her hopes for her future as well. Ultimately, it is also more detrimental to her character and causes her melancholy and grief to quickly turn to irretrievable madness.
Ophelia trusts the advise given and her obedience is very evident in this matter as she avoids contact with Hamlet until she is told by her father, with the King and Queens approval, to meet up with him by 'accident' in the lobby. Deceit not being in her nature, believing that her father, the king and queen are right and true; that Hamlet is mad; and probably curious to know if Hamlet is "mad in love" with her the young, obedient, powerless Ophelia does her part to search out the truth. But tragically this one forced step outside of her true character begins her downfall. In a precarious predicament, loyalty to her father compelled Ophelia to lie to Hamlet when he asked about her father?s location at that moment saying he was at home instead of behind a tapestry right the...
In 1600, William Shakespeare composed what is considered the greatest tragedy of all time, Hamlet, the tragedy of the Prince of Denmark. His masterpiece forever redefined what tragedy should be. Critics have analyzed it word for word for nearly four hundred years, with each generation appreciating Hamlet in its own way. While Hamlet conforms, without a doubt, to Aristotle's definition of a tragedy, one question still lingers. Did Shakespeare intend for the reader or viewer of Hamlet to feel greater sympathy for Hamlet, or for Ophelia, Hamlet's lover? Both characters tug at the heartstrings throughout the play, but it is clear that 'the tragedy of the Prince of Denmark' is a misrepresentation of Shakespeare's true intention.
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.
Despite Ophelia’s weak will, the male characters respond dramatically to her actions, proving that women indeed have a large impact in Hamlet. Her obedience is actually her downfall, because it allows the male characters to control and use her in their schemes. Ophelia’s betrayal ends up putting Hamlet over the edge, motivating him in his quest for revenge. Ophelia is one of the two women in the play. As the daughter of Polonius, she only speaks in the company of several men, or directly to her brother or father. Since we never see her interactions with women, she suppresses her own thoughts in order to please her superiors. Yet however weak and dependent her character is on the surface, Ophelia is a cornerstone to the play’s progression. One way that her manipulation is key to Hamlet’s plot is when Polonius orders her “in plain terms, from this time forth/ Have you so slander any moment leisure/As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet,” (1.3.131-133). She complies with his wishes, agreeing to return any tokens of Hamlet’s love to him, verify t...