Madness. Though to most it seems like a simple betrayal of the mind, the use of madness throughout Hamlet, by William Shakespeare creates a sense of not only the breakdown of the mind, but a breakdown of society. In the play, two main characters give into madness, one is a faked, and one is all too real. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, chose to act mad in order to confuse Claudius. Ophelia on the other hand, goes insane due to an accumulation of many factors, such as isolation, distrust, and grief.
Ophelia begins the play as an innocent, trusting, and spirited young girl, full of promise and full of life. But, all too soon her view of men and the world in general is tainted. Her brother warns her that Hamlet may be toying with her affections and to, "fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister..." (1.3.33). With these simple words he implants the seeds of distrust and betrayal. These themes of distrust and betrayal are interwoven throughout much of the play, from the murder of the King, to the constant spying of Polonius.
Not long after her conversation with Laertes, Polonius decides to have a frank chat with Ophelia about her relationship with Hamlet. He has no sympathy towards her feelings, and uses her just as a source of information to better his political position. He once again talks about how you can’t trust everything that people say. He says, "even in their promise, as it is a-making, you must not take for fire" (1.3.119-120). Once again, this theme of "not everything is what is seems" pops up again. "Something is rotten in Denmark". Something is not right in Denmark. In society in general. And eventually, something will not be right in Ophelia's mind.
There are many factors that drive Ophelia's eventual madness. One of these...
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... political powers to collapse, and Fortinbras of Norway takes over.
Ophelia eventually takes her life in that haunting scene of a young girl, "fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide...chanted snatched of old lauds...garments heavy with their drink...pulled the poor wretch....to muddy death" (4.7.173-181). At this point she views the world as this awful, crazy place where she can no longer live in. She takes the step that Hamlet cannot. Her suicide marks the lowest point in her life. She has come to the realization that not all men are good, not all people are true, and the world she lives in is not what it seems. It’s not all full of sunshine and rainbows. It's full of greed, anger, sadness, and betrayal.
Ophelia’s madness represents the evilness of the society we live in. It shows the madness and darker side of the world, and the people who live in it.
Often overlooked in Shakespeare’s famous play Hamlet, Shawna Maki analyzes Ophelia’s restricting role as a woman in a patriarchal society and how it essentially leads to her death being the true tragedy of the play. Maki supports this argument by stating, “Whereas Hamlet has the power and potential to change his fate, Ophelia does not and her death is tragic because the only escape she sees from her oppression is madness and death.”. The comparison between Hamlet and Ophelia is a common parallel because both characters are inevitably labeled as tragic deaths due to the quick deterioration of their state of mind.
Ophelia’s mental strength quickly dissipates due to multiple happenings in the play. The man that she once thought she was in love with kills her father, driving her into the dark abyss of grief. She begins to fall into madness, “...speaks things in doubt /That carry but half sense /Her speech is nothing” (3.3.7-8). She begins to jabber on about nonsense. She loses her ability to think, “...poor Ophelia /Divided from herself and her fair judgment” (4.5.91-92). Others see her as an emotional wreck, falling farther and farther into insanity. She finally can’t take it anymore, so she ends her own life, “As we have warranty. Her death was doubtful” (5.1.234). Others saw Ophelia in a dark light, saying that she took her own life, and that she did not deserve a nobel burial. Ophelia was driven into mania by a combination of negative things, that in the end, lead to her taking her own
Ophelia is portrayed as a sensitive, fragile woman. Easily overpowered and controlled by her brother and father, Ophelia is destined to be weak. Ophelia’s brother, Laertes, warns and pushes Ophelia to stay away from Hamlet and is further supported by their father Polonius. “Polonius enters and adds his warning to those of Laertes. He orders Ophelia not to spend time with Hamlet or even talk to him. Ophelia promises to obey” (“Hamlet” 95). Ophelia’s obedience to her father’s directions prove the side she
In The Tragedy of Hamlet, Shakespeare developed the story of prince Hamlet, and the murder of his father by the king's brother, Claudius. Hamlet reacted to this event with an internal battle that harmed everyone around him. Ophelia was the character most greatly impacted by Hamlet's feigned and real madness - she first lost her father, her sanity, and then her life. Ophelia, obedient, weak-willed, and no feminist role model, deserves the most pity of any character in the play.
The story of Hamlet is a morbid tale of tragedy, commitment, and manipulation; this is especially evident within the character of Ophelia. Throughout the play, Ophelia is torn between obeying and following the different commitments that she has to men in her life. She is constantly torn between the choice of obeying the decisions and wishes of her family or that of Hamlet. She is a constant subject of manipulation and brain washing from both her father and brother. Ophelia is not only subject to the torture of others using her for their intentions but she is also susceptible to abuse from Hamlet. Both her father and her brother believe that Hamlet is using her to achieve his own personal goals.
...nation to her inevitable death corresponds to her limited (vacant) freedom of speech and license to develop her own convictions and individual identity and question authority. Secondly, Ophelia’s surrender to her imminent fate also echoes her unstable, manipulative, and emotional abusive relationship with Hamlet and the hierarchy in her dynamic, as she always obeys without hesitation. Regardless of how Ophelia’s death began, the result was a suicide, as the pure (graceful), serene, and beautiful imagery of her suicide implies that her death was a last effort to recover her dignity, rebel against her oppressors, and exert her free will. For Ophelia, a life of oppression and blind obedience drove her to a frailty of mind, and in her last moments, she chose death over dishonor to defeat the inner demons threatening to condemn her to an otherwise hopeless existence.
With the men’s constant abuse, they each start telling her different things. Unsure of whom to listen to, she starts to get confused and starts losing herself. When finally there was no one there to tell her anymore she goes mad, and on the brink of her madness she ends up killing herself. Throughout all these events, no one stops to think of her as an actual person, but instead like a rag doll they could just toss around. The play Hamlet itself was discussed without any bother of Ophelia for nearly four hundred years before scholars started to think of her and read the play with a Feminist viewpoint.
The quickest take over of madness is exhibited in Hamlet’s love interest, Ophelia. The most important example of madness is shown in Hamlet after his meeting with the Ghost and his plot for revenge upon his uncle. The most unexpected example of madness is in Laertes who in a fit of rage loses all gentleman like qualities and almost upsets the kingdom. All of these characters add up to the idea that to lose someone a person cares about dearly, ultimately ends in losing one’s composure and going mad. If we take away anything from Shakespeare’s play, it should be that each of us should think over our decisions prior to making them to insure we don’t have the same fate as the characters stated
In this research I will discuss madness in Shakespeare's plays ; Hamlet , King Lear , and Macbeth. throughout those three tragedies we meet with kinds of madness, what the real reasons that push the heroes to be mad . Is Ophelia in Hamlet became mad because of the death of her father or Hamlet's deny of her love ?. Is Ophelia really mad or she suffered from mania mitis resulting from her social's stress?. In King Lear , he is the most dangerous type of mental disorder, the madness of Lear resulting from that he is old age. His senility led him blindly to deconstruct the justice of heaven ; he distributed his kingdom just between two daughters. He judged how his daughters loves him with their speech not with their actions, and that not acceptable
In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Ophelia is the most static character in the play. Instead of changing through the course of the play, she remains suffering in the misfortunes perpetrated upon her. She falls into insanity and dies a tragic death. Ophelia has issues surviving without a male influence, and her downfall is when all the men in her life abandon her. Hamlet’s Ophelia, is a tragic, insane character that cannot exist on her own.
At first glance, William Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet appears to be an obvious story of a man who goes mad over the murder of his father, the king. Madness is a common theme throughout Hamlet, but often times Hamlet himself is the only character seen as mad. An explanation for this is that a first time reader does not carry the perception that any other characters are mad, simply Hamlet. When in actuality Hamlet is surrounded by people who are indeed mad. Ophelia is one main character whose madness is quite obvious. From her Valentine Song in act IV to her suicide in act V, her madness becomes more apparent as the play unfolds. Throughout Hamlet small glimpses of madness from other characters are seen, however the extent of these characters madness is not equal to that of Hamlet or Ophelia. The World Book Dictionary defines madness as " the fact or condition of being crazy; insane condition; loss of one's mind" (2: 1251). Jerome Mazzaro says that "Madness becomes, consequently, a closing off of one's self from others and from one's past..." (101). Whether or not Hamlet and Ophelia fit this definition exactly is unclear; however, this definition does describe each of them somewhat. The degree of their madness differs, but both Hamlet and Ophelia are indeed mad.
In Hamlet, Ophelia is unaware of the evil is spreading around her. She is an obedient woman, and is naive in that she takes what people say at face value, which makes her an innocent lady. "You should not have believed me, for virtue/ cannot so inculate our old stock but we shall relish of/ it. I loved you not." (III.ii. 117-119). Hamlet says these lines as a mask of his madness, but Ophelia does not understand his true motives and takes Hamlet's words very seriously to heart. The words that Hamlet says to Ophelia both confuse and hurt her greatly. Hamlet's lines are what eventually lead Ophelia to insanity, and Ophelia's insanity is what causes her death by drowning.
Ophelia is a beautiful and simple-minded woman, easily molded by the more powerful opinions and desires of others. The thoughts of her father and her brother influenced her the most. The love letters from Hamlet also swayed her opinions and confused her mind. Ophelia wasn't able to realize herself because of all the pressures exerted on her to be something she's not. That weakness of mind and will, which permitted her obedience to her father and thus destroyed her hope for Hamlet's love, finally resulted in her insanity and death.
Ophelia’s betrayal ends up putting Hamlet over the edge, motivating him in his quest for revenge. Ophelia is one of the two women in the play. As the daughter of Polonius, she only speaks in the company of several men, or directly to her brother or father. Since we never see her interactions with women, she suppresses her own thoughts in order to please her superiors. Yet, however weak and dependent her character is on the surface, Ophelia is a cornerstone to the play’s progression.
Ophelia was a pawn, nothing more, which was used by those that supposedly loved her for their own purposes. She was used by her father to drive Hamlet to madness, as he thought. Hamlet used her to convince Polonius and others that he was mad. Ophelia eventually looses both of these men, which is what drives her to insanity, possibly because the two biggest "influences" of her life have disappeared.