Ophelia’s Madness

The inclusion of the term ‘madness’ or phrase ‘gone mad’ play a pertinent role in the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare. Not only does the title Character, Hamlet, show signs of ‘madness’ but his love, Ophelia ‘goes mad’. Although from the plot of the play we can pick up what is meant by mad, but what truly is madness? Merriam Webster dictionary lists two definitions for this term: A state of severe mental illness and or behavior or thinking that is very foolish or dangerous. By the standards of these definitions we can conclude that Ophelia, the lover of Hamlet, daughter of Polonius, sister to Laertes has in fact gone mad, but the question remains as to why. Ophelia has gone mad because her body cannot process all of the grief and stress she has been subjected to, during the events of the play.

As far as we know, up until the recent events, Ophelia has had a comfortable life. Her father counsel to King Claudius has landed the family in a high part of society, shielded from the effects of poverty. She is beautiful, rich, and has the boy, well only for a little while. During the time of the passing of King Hamlet, Polonius has forbidden his daughter Ophelia to see her one and only lover, the man she believed she was going to marry, she sings, “Quoth she, “Before you tumbled me, You promised me to wed.” He answers, So would I ha' done, by yonder sun, An thou hadst not come to my bed.”(Shakespeare IV.V) She has given herself completely to Hamlet, but on orders from her father she must sever all ties. This has her grieving, grieving over love lost, true love lost. She is still in love with Hamlet, but must obey her father despite her grief; this is putting a tremendous amount of stress on poor Ophelia. She is torn between family, ...

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...mark and its people should have helped her instead of letting the poor girl suffer. She suffered through this mental illness alone until her untimely death, which is still unclear whether it was suicide, accidental, or murder, but based on what that girl has had to endure; it would not be unlikely, that she simply could not bear it anymore. She had to put an end to the madness.

So what is the real cause of Ophelia’s madness? It is the lack of empathy and care that all the characters in the play felt toward the poor insane girl. She was not insane until she couldn’t handle it anymore. This madness could have been stopped, maybe days before, but no one bothered to ask the simple questions to a teenage girl, ‘Ophelia, is everything ok? Is there anything you need to talk about?‘ Maybe next time these people will think twice before letting one of their own go insane.