Helpless. The characters around Ophelia's life treat her as an infant who can't make any decisions on her own. The men in specific, look at her as a mere puppet. Her father and brother guide her to make the choices they see fit and she follows their advice even if she disagrees with it. Overall Ophelia is dehumanized and characterized as an object that is to be manipulated and taken advantage of to help others achieve their goals. Whose emotions are not taken into consideration. The entirety of Shakespeare’s Hamlet highlights and rejects the sexist treatment of Ophelia and depicts it in a negative light.
They have a very different personality. Hamlet is cynical and full of hatred. Ophelia is a quiet girl who never thinks of hurting anyone even after her father’s death. They are in the upper classes and both have a father who has the eager to control them. Furthermore, after Hamlet and Ophelia’s father died, they both gone insane. The only difference is that Ophelia was truly crazy but Hamlet was faking it for his vengeance. They have a different way to express their madness. Ophelia’s insanity had accelerated the plot by emphasizing the death of Polonius and strengthens Laertes’s belief to kill Hamlet for revenge. However Hamlet’s madness was full of satirical and offensive words towards others, it is full of her fantasy and old memory about people she
Ophelia seems to be the most genuinely hurt Hamlet’s theatrical “madness.” When Polonius uses her as a pawn to spy on Hamlet, she remarks “Oh woe is me, ‘T; have seen what I have seen, see what I see.”(3.3.162). Even though Ophelia is but a pawn she is still off put by Hamlet’s rejection and pitties herself for having witnessed him change. This is also self serving as she thinking of how Hamlet’’s madness will affect her rather than him, revealingly once more that Ophelia’s own emotional well being is dependent on people. This is detrimental, however, for Ophelia's as her one sided feelings for Hamlet allow her to be used as a pawn by both Claudius and Polonius as well as Hamlet. It is not clear whether Ophelia understand if she is pawn or not, however, this does not stop her from fulfilling the wishes of both
Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a revenge calamity which concentrates on his wish and effort to solve his father’s murder. Throughout the course of the play, the relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia could be described as a rollercoaster. Although Ophelia is not in every single scene in Hamlet, her impact on the play is highly noted. One way a reader could interpret her presence is because of how tragic her experiences in life is. She experiences the misfortune of love and security, but in order for her death to be truly tragic, she has to come to terms with the realization of her powerlessness without the men in her life. In her madness, Ophelia eventually does make this realization and because of her lack of alternatives, she accepts death.
When an individual thinks about the concept of love, positive thoughts come to mind such as affection, romance, and passion. Love is usually not associated with the negative possible outcomes. Love is often an important part of a story; it builds up excitement and gets the plot going. In William Shakespeare 's Hamlet and Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, the emotion of love is portrayed to drive a character insane.
In conclusion, it can be proven that Hamlet truly does love Ophelia. He pretends he isn’t in love with her kind of like in real life. Sometimes people pretend they not care for the people they really care for the most, just like Hamlet did to
Ophelia’s character went through quite a large transformation. In the play her father tells her that she is to stay away from Hamlet and she readily agrees. In the movie Ophelia doesn’t disagree with her father but she also doesn’t agree just to please him. This shows that Ophelia isn’t easily persuaded, even by her own father. Despite her father’s warning about Hamlet, Ophelia met with him in secret at her apartment until her father found out. After their secret was discovered, Hamlet rushed out of Ophelia’s apartment and Polonius stopped Ophelia from going after him, causing her to drop the letter that Hamlet had given her. After reading the letter Polonius hurries to tell Claudius and Gertrude what he’s discovered. Polonius and Ophelia find them at their private pool, where Polonius proceeds to tell them that he thinks that Hamlet’s madness has been caused by his love for Ophelia. While her father is telling Claudius and Gertrude about his theory, Ophelia continuously tries to take the letter away from him. After finally giving up in her attempts to keep her letter private, Ophelia stands near the edge of the pool and imagines jumping in, which could point to suicidal tendencies. After Polonius finishes reading the letter Claudius, Gertrude and himself decide to use Ophelia as a spy. While her father was putting a wire on her, Ophelia had tears rolling down her face. Once the wire was in place
Ophelia goes mad throughout the story. She is overwhelmed by the loss of her father and the rejection of Hamlet. Her character is seen spiraling down a dark path that also ends in death. Ophelia is depicted as not having control over her actions; speaking and acting erratically. While Hamlet is speaking erratically and behaving oddly, he still maintains control over his actions and movement throughout the story. The differences in their madness strongly support the assertion that Hamlet is, in fact, not truly mad. "The mad role that Hamlet plays to perfection is certainly a proof of Shakespeare's genius, but by no means a surety of the insanity of the prince, unless we be prepared to maintain that no one saves a madman can simulate dementia" (Blackmore). As Blackmore points out, his crazy behavior is such that only someone who is not mad could play the part so well. Again, a truly mad person would not have so much control over his actions and
In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Shakespeare uses range of literary techniques such as soliloquies to express Hamlet’s depression and anger. Hamlet’s emotions play a crucial role to achieve his secret ambitions. Events such as King Hamlet’s death, Hamlet’s mother’s expeditious marriage, conflict between Hamlet and Ophelia. Hamlet’s depression and anger is expressed throughout the play but what are the causes.
“But never doubt that I love” (2.2.119). Throughout the play The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare, Hamlet professes much love to his girlfriend Ophelia. However he begins to mistreat her through his antic dispositions caused by revenge on his uncle, King Claudius, who killed his father. Hamlet has not only become distraught from his conniving and lying stepfather but also his mother, Queen Gertrude as well. The unfaithfulness that Gertrude shows to Hamlet’s father and Hamlet has a toll on him and plays a part in his insanity. The facade that Hamlet displays slowly leads to his insanity, causing him to show mistreated love towards Ophelia.
Hamlet’s true feelings for Ophelia come out when he hears about her death. He confessed that, “forty thousand brothers could not, with all their quantity of love, make up my sum(Act 5, Scene 1, Pg.12),” meaning if you could add the love of forty brothers it still wouldn’t match his love for her. He also questioned Laertes asking him what could he possibly do for her that he couldn’t. He then went on to say that we would go as far as eating a crocodile for her, showing his madness starting to deepen. Ophelia’s significance in play is revealed after this scene showing that she was his last piece of sanity and love.
"When a man gives his opinion he is a man. When a woman gives her opinion she is a bitch."- Bette Davis Throughout time society has used woman as a scapegoat for societal issues that have occurred. In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Shakespeare uses character and rhetoric to display how ones hatred and anger are impulsively taken out upon woman, from this the reader learns how misogyny is difficult to acknowledge, but rather easy to practice.
Despite all the reasons throughout the play to show that Hamlet did not in fact love Ophelia, I believe he may have loved her in some sense. Hamlet may or may not have been hopelessly in love with Ophelia but he definitely felt some sort of love for her. Evidence of his love for her is shown massively by how he responds to learning of about her unfortunate death. In Act V, it is revealed that Ophelia had drowned herself, later in the act, Hamlet discovers the truth. Hamlet becomes so distressed he leaps into Ophelia 's grave. He then follows with, "I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers Could not with all their quantity of love Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?" As his way to fiercely reinstate that he truly loves Ophelia. Hamlet even begins to tell them to bury him
In Act 5 scene 1, page 12 Hamlet says “ I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers could not with all their quantity of love make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her.” In this case, the hamlet has proven to everyone that he is in love with Ophelia, with him saying that if you added a forty thousand brothers their love couldn't match mine. With this Hamlet is finally coming out and finally showing his love for Ophelia. All along hamlet did love Ophelia but he was just afraid to show that he did love her because he was afraid that he would get hurt. On the other hand, Hamlet could have also hidden his love to protect Ophelia from getting hurt from Claudius for the revenge they both wanted on each other. For instance when hamlet first tell Ophelia that he did love her but then changes with saying that he didn't he loved her because he knew that their conversation was being
Hamlet’s dislike of women is shown through his behavior and language toward his mother, Ophelia, and women in general. In the play it is very obvious that he is heartless towards the opposite sex by the actions that he takes and the words that he speaks. During the time that this play was written women were viewed as insignificant human beings. Hamlet found himself having feelings for a woman and he does not know how to portray these feelings because he holds his mother responsible for his inability to love Ophelia.