Theme Of Madness In Ophelia

Ophelia is the daughter of Polonius, the Lord Chamberlain to King Claudius. She is the love interest of Hamlet, and often questions her own nobility as well as his. She refers to her own nobility when she returns her gifts to Hamlet. She did not want to accept these gifts because it would be immoral for her to take them from an immoral person. When Hamlet starts his madness, she states “Oh, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown! The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword, Th’ expectancy and rose of the fair state, the glass of fashion and the mould of form, Th’ observed of all observers, quite, quite down!” (Hamlet, Act 3 Scene 1) She talks about how he was once so noble, but he has lost all of his grace and fell low. In Act

He comes back to Elsinore after his sister, Ophelia, kills herself from the pain Hamlet caused her. Laertes joins the King’s forces to get back at Hamlet. Laertes and Hamlet duel in the end, while in combat they both stab each other. Laertes got his revenge on Hamlet and was immediately punished for it. (Rosenberg, Justice in Hamlet)

Madness, or insanity, is a major theme in the Shakespearean era. It is very prominent in the work Hamlet because two major characters turn insane. Hamlet pretends to go mad, so that his mother will pay attention to him. This eventually makes him go truly insane. Ophelia is another character that goes deranged. Her madness is triggered when Hamlet does not give her the attention she wishes for. She ultimately ends her life because of it.

When Hamlet says, “Here, as before, never, so help you mercy, How strange or odd soe’er I bear myself (As I perchance hereafter shall think met to put an antic disposition on),“ he tells Horatio that he is going to act differently. (Hamlet, Act 1 Scene 5) He wants Horatio to know it is an act and that he cannot let anyone else know that Hamlet spoke to the Ghost. This feigned madness allows Hamlet to attack King Claudius with riddles that confuses everyone. Claudius is raged by Hamlet so much so that he asks the English King to kill him, because “the hectic in my blood he rages, and thou must cure me.” (Hamlet, Act 4 Scene

She does not see the Ghost he is talking to, so she says it is a hallucination caused by his “ecstasy”, or madness. She is not the only one who comments on Hamlet’s new mindset. Polonius tells Gertrude her son is mad. He tells her about the letter Hamlet wrote Ophelia, and how they must get to the resource of his madness because what he is saying is vile. Gertrude believes that Hamlet’s cruel rejection of Ophelia was triggered by the death of his father. But it is also thought that he may be losing his mind because he wants to accept the Ghost is real. (Rosenberg, Justice in