Ophelia Hamlet Rhetorical Analysis

In Hamlet by William Shakespeare Hamlet becomes overcome with rage when Ophelia betrays him with her dishonesty about her father, Polonius. Before Hamlet’s anger intensifies, he greets Ophelia with a subtle kindness and compassion, answering her gentle questions heartedly. The tables turn when Ophelia brings to him the letters composed of sweet words that he gave to her as a gift of his love. This is not only a betrayal of the love Hamlet gave to her, but she stands against Hamlet and with her father since she allows him to control her actions. The dialogue between the two lovers brings to question whether Hamlet truly cares for Ophelia or not, and her responses to his disassociation of her provide evidence of her spiraling down into madness.

She uses contrasting diction while describing the love letters to Hamlet, “Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind” (100). Ophelia creates imagery of how her relationship with Hamlet was before her father Polonius ordered her to end it and before Hamlet began his mad act upon Denmark. There is an undertone of sadness in her words toward Hamlet, calling him out for being deceitful about his promised love to her. Every kind word and every gift he has given to her has now faded away and lost its sweetness because Hamlet has proved himself to be unkind by denying their love in the first place. Hamlet refers to the emotional feeling of love or the act of lovemaking in “I did love you once” which if this is his way of expressing to Ophelia that he loves her then the following line “I lov’d you not” appears to be a bad reaction to her words. (114-118). On the contrary, if this is Hamlet claiming he made love to her, then that following line of denying the emotional love seems excessively harsh toward Ophelia’s fragileness that is starting to crack open. Ophelia’s retort to Hamlet’s unkind words “I was the more deceiv’d” makes the reader think that she really did believe the prince when he said he loved her (119). However, she remains silent as to whether or not she loved him back because she knows her father and the king are listening in. Hamlet’s mad acting toward her misleads her and Ophelia’s betrayal of him regarding her participation in helping set him up, are major contributions to the theme of deceit in