The Consequences Of Ophelia's Madness In Hamlet

Ophelia has captured Hamlet’s love and is also in love with him herself. Hamlet constantly mistreats and deceives her, took her innocence, and eventually leaves her even though he promised that he would marry her. Ophelia is constantly a victim of Hamlet and his treatment of going back and forth between his strong love for her and harsh words towards her; he is constantly using her as a tool to get what he wants. In Act 3, Scene 1, Lines 113 – 117, Hamlet states to Ophelia: “Ay, truly, for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness. This was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof.

This is encapsulated in Hamlet exclaims, “frailty, thy name is woman!” about his mother’s hasty marriage to her deceased husband’s brother (Shakespeare 1.2.150). In this quote, Hamlet is dismissing all women as weak-willed like he believes Gertrude to be, which affects his interactions with Ophelia also. Hamlet is cruel to her because of this anger he has towards women in general, so when pretending to be mad, he goes “full force in the misogynist rage” when telling her he used to love her, but now she should go to a nunnery (Traub 192). Ophelia can be seen as weak in this scene because she protests little against Hamlet and only hopes that his insanity will end. These crude comments Hamlet says to Ophelia continue throughout the play until Ophelia is being buried when Hamlet asserts that he loved Ophelia.

Like most plays, they each have a protagonist with a so-called ‘fatal flaw,’ a lapse in character that leads to conflict within the story. For Much Ado About Nothing, the protagonist Claudio is gullible, and believes the lie that his love is unfaithful to him. In King Lear, Lear is prideful, and takes his daughter’s refusal to pour praise onto him as a personal affront. Another similarity between the two shows would be the use of misconception to further the plot. Lear believes that his daughter does not care for him and so takes away her inheritance, while Claudio believes that his betrothed has been unfaithful and so shames her on their wedding day.

Here it must be Hamlet’s trick to continue with his task of avenging his uncle Claudius. Why Should Hamlet Assume Madness? Here a question arises finally, why should Hamlet assume madness, first of all before the very girl whom he loved from the core of his heart? There could be many reasons, but one of those is that of hasty marriage of mother has produced a sort of disgust for woman in his heart. Thus, he said; “Frailty, thy name is woman.” And after that the revelation of his father’s ghost made him mentally unnerved and disturbed him extremely, “He is shaken with terrible disillusionment, he is on the verge of dark dungeon beyond which loom of ominous shadows of utter despair and disbelief in the good of mankind(Umrani;______;41).” Nothing in the world interests him, neither man nor woman.

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

A second example of evil would be “Revolts from true birth stumbling on abuse” (21). This quote has malicious meaning because revolt means violently disagreeing and “abuse” means improper treatment of a living thing and objects. The message of this quote is that not caring about somebody causes them to break free of your neglect, which shows that not caring can be a hateful act. This is an example of classical allusion because in the story “Romeo and Juliet” Juliet’s parents abuse her in a sense where they don’t care if she likes who she marries which causes her to further love Romeo. My third and final example of villainous mentions is when Friar Laurence says “And flecked darkness like a drunkard reels” (4).

By having Lady Macbeth be part of his plot to kill Banquo, Macbeth reveals two things about himself: That he does not value those around him, even if they are his loved ones, and that he places his personal success over all aspects of his life. He attempts to be deceitful to Banquo, revealing a fraudulence of Macbeth’s character. Shakespeare also includes this to apply to the real world, itself; that we should be skeptical of those around us, no matter how jovial those around us might

Hamlet’s impulsiveness also characterizes him as feminine, as the tendency to act out of emotion rather than rational thought is traditionally considered feminine. Although Hamlet thinks often, he does not often apply this thought to his actions and instead, when he does act, he does so impulsively. Hamlet’s impulsiveness “which induces him to jump into Ophelia’s open grave with Laertes, which leads him to slay Polonius the instant that he see the hangings stir, and which enables him at last to take his full revenge upon the spur of the moment and without premeditation” exemplifies his femininity in that he does all of these things without thinking before and instead acts completely on his emotions (Vining 54). In jumping into Ophelia’s grave, Hamlet acts

He expresses repeated outbursts of empty allegations and scrutiny, “are you honest? Are you fair?” ( Act 3 scene one. )The impression being given is that Hamlet's views of women have been lowered as a result of his commitment to revenge. His obsession with getting revenge on Claudius and honoring his word to his father are directly linked to his despise towards his mother's betrayal as well as his distrust and acrimony with Ophelia. This is yet another consequence of Hamlets commitment to revenge and reinforces the idea that Hamlet is psychologically damaged from his commitment to getting revenge on his

But we can see after he finds out about the truth, he is forced to act because of his morality beliefs. The battle in Hamlet’s tragedy occurs in a dynamic society that is created by opposing forces that contradict with each other and Hamlet is a philosophical prince who blames the court for impunity, injustice, and murder; and all of these problems prevents him from being a part of court’s social life and he becomes depressed. Hamlet’s deep depression effects on his behaviors until he even doesn’t act like prince and becomes mad. His madness effect on his judgment and makes him to become obsessed with the death; even he sees death as the only way to take revenge. We can see that Hamlet explores death in every facet of the play from many different angles and how he develops his definition of death from the materially to morality perspective.