The Price Of Being An Obedient Ophelia Analysis

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The Price of Being an Obedient Ophelia Ophelia is the modern representation of how women were depicted in the 16th century--frail and purposeless without the direction of a man. Women in this time period are supposed to be viewed as virgins, pure, and faultless flowers. Though Ophelia has the appearance of one, she has the personality of a caged, voiceless, and obedient servant to the men in her life. “I do not know, my lord, what I should think? (1.3.103-104). Not only is she not allowed to make her own choices, but she has no power over of her own body. She is a slave, and will only leave her cage when her services are needed to benefit others. “Look to ’t, I charge you.” (1.3.134-135). Ophelia is far from a faultless flower. Her petals are branded in chains that only grew more unbearable until her stem finally snapped. She is the result of her own enslavement, and the maker of her own insanity. Due to her being treated like a slave, she believed that she truly was one. “I shall obey, my lord.” (1.3.135-136). This is why her personality is almost nonexistent in Hamlet-- she’s not authorized to have one. For Ophelia, without the presence of a mother to …show more content…

Even in death, with Ophelia’s passive personality, she would rather fall in a lake and commit suicide than save herself from sinking. She allows even death to use her body to take her life in the end, “Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,/ Pull 'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay/ To muddy death.” (4.7.179-181). Ophelia pays the ultimate price for permitting others to violate her in such callous ways. The insanity that ended up killing her, was the escape her sanity needed. Ophelia was born to wilt. Having the expectation of being a flower was the dawn of her road to madness, making Ophelia the most victimized character in

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