The Innocent One
If you can be honest with yourself then you should have no problem being honest with others. Ophelia is an obedient young woman torn between what she wants and what is good for her. She has lived a life of being kind, loyal, and always truthful even when outside voices attempt to influence her. Although being young and obedient, she was easily manipulated by the men in her life such as Hamlet and her father. During Hamlets act of madness, Ophelia still loved him, but chose to stay true to what she knew and Obeyed her father’s request to stay away from the prince. This young woman was so loyal to herself that it even drove her to her own death. Ophelia is the character that is most true to herself.
Throughout the book, Ophelia never deviated from herself. All women of this time period had few choices in life. They were the maids of the home and the bearers of children. Forced to look up to men, this was their lifestyle. Ophelia was just like these other women. She spoke when she was spoken to, took orders and obeyed them fully, and always stayed loyal to herself and her family. When
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Hamlet pursued her, she was blinded by “young love” but when warned by her father and brother she listened to their claims and did what she only knew to be the right thing. She Obeyed her father and brother. Ophelia stayed pure up until the day she died. In Hamlet you often see Ophelia always obeying orders and never deviating from her family. You do however often see her expressing how she feels. She doesn’t hold back when it comes to her emotions. For example, she was especially true to herself and everyone else when she handed out flowers in Act 4 Scene 5. “There’s rosemary. Thats for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember, And there is pansies, that’s for thoughts.(4.5.187)” at this point in the play she’s giving Laertes his flowers. This represents that she’s grieving with her brother over their father’s death. Then to the king, “I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died. They say he made a good end.(4.5.196)” During this scene she had just finished giving the king his share of flowers. Violets are represented as the flower of faithfulness in the book. This proves that Ophelia really wasn’t crazy like everyone thought. She was actually very aware of everyone, but she would never have the chance to admit it. Madness is what allows Ophelia to speak freely. Although she isn’t really mad, everyone believes she is. At this point in the book, she has nowhere to turn. Her father has died, Hamlet has rejected her, and her brother is fixated on revenge. She has no one and although people pity her, they’ll never continue to take her seriously now, and she knows this. Then Ophelia suddenly drowns and the question is whether or not it was suicide. Although evidence from the text suggests that it was. “There is a willow grows aslant the brook That shows his hoary leaves in the glassy stream. There with fantastic garlands did she come of crow flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples, That liberal shepherds give a grosser name(4.7.181). crow flowers represent her humility and neatness. Nettles represent sharp and stinging almost like she was in pain. Daises are her innocence, and long purples refer to her never being with a man. Then when finished hanging these things, she hung from a branch on the tree. When it broke she plunged into the water and drowned. All these clues give us reason to think it was suicide. Out of all the trees she could have hung from she chose a weeping willow tree. “Her clothes spread wide And mermaid-like awhile they bore her up which time she chanted of old tunes As one capable of her own distress or like a creature native and indued unto that element.(4.7.185) This is proof that would make us believe she planned her death. She continued to sing while falling into the water. The book described her as mermaid like or almost like she was accustomed to the water. Then without any struggle or will to try and save herself, she drown. From the beginning to the end of this book, Ophelia was always innocent in every way.
Although she didn’t have a christian burial because she committed suicide, she was still recognized as a sweet and innocent young girl at her funeral. Its sad to know that someone so honest and pure felt that she had no other way out than death. The young woman would never have a chance to prove that she wasn’t crazy even if she lived. She saw everyone’s guilt, which became obvious when she handed out the flowers in the castle. This makes you question whether she would have became someone's next victim since she knew so much. If she were to have lived, she would have never lived a life of true happiness. That is what makes her death a true tragedy. Hamlet was a story full of liars and murderers however, there will always be a character that was good and true. That was
Ophelia.
Loyal. Betrayed. Insane. Ophelia, a character from The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare, goes through emotional pain and suffering, that drives her into madness. Torn between her father’s word and her love for Hamlet, she chooses to listen to her father, which spells her own demise. Hamlet betrays Ophelia, telling her that he never loved her and that she meant nothing to him. Ophelia feels abandoned, but when her father dies she is pushed over the edge. She is no longer able to move on so she takes her own life.
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
Ophelia is obedient and loyal in the way that she loves Hamlet, but has no choice but to obey her father’s whims “I shall obey my lord” (1.4.10). She doesn’t argue and goes along with what she is told “…But as you did command, I did repel
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 men in Ophelia's life are wrong about her true personality. They make demands that are impossible to resolve due to the conflicting forces that influence her life. There is no way that she could possibly live up to these demands because they contradict each other. Due to the absence of Ophelia's mother, her life is completely dominated by the will of men. All of her decisions and choices in life are determined by the men around her, therefore Ophelia is a character that lacks freewill. She is deprived of the most basic intuition of humans, so therefore she loses the will to live.
Ophelia is loyal to the men in her family, as per the ideal for women at the time, however, Ophelia confuses her loyalty with mental dependence on her father and brother to guide her through her life and her feelings. An instance of this is seen when she says to Polonius, “I
The reader is left guessing on Hamlet’s true feelings for Ophelia through his various insults, sexual innuendos, and admitted desire. Hamlet’s claim, “God hath given you one face, and you / Make yourselves another.” (3.1.155-156) is laced with irony and hypocrisy given Hamlet’s own deception regarding true feelings. This proclamation comes at the end of a lengthy tirade against Ophelia and womankind in general for their conniving deceit leading men astray. The fact that Hamlet cannot see this duplicity in his very own actions shows the double standard he holds for females. Ophelia’s immediate reaction is one of shock and defense due to the aggressive nature of Hamlet’s attack. She calls out “O, woe is me!” (3.1.174) in distress to the ferocity of Hamlet and is unable to form a particularly coherent response akin to the ones seen against Laertes and Polonius. She does show her intelligence and rebellion from this assumption of power by Hamlet in her songs while Hamlet is gone. While many attribute her madness to the death of her father, a large portion of her instability should be attributed to Hamlet and his earlier actions. In her first introduction as insane she sings, “And I a maid at your window, / To be your Valentine. / Then up he rose and donned his clothes / And dropped the chamber door, / Let in the maid, that out a maid / Never departed more.” (4.5.55-60). Due to her references to sexuality and deceit the
Ophelia’s madness is because of what she encounters throughout the play by everyone around her. Her character is often looked past, people really don’t give her a second thought, and her emotions and wellbeing are almost entirely forgotten about. When her father and brother are telling her to stay away from Hamlet, she tries to speak up and tell them that she knows that Hamlet truly loves her. She tells them her feelings, but they say no, she is not to speak to Hamlet again and must obey. They didn’t take a second to try and look things over from her perspective. After Polonius and Claudius plan for Ophelia and Hamlet to meet and talk while they hid to listened, Ophelia is verbally abused by Hamlet and her father is too caught up with Hamlet’s
Ophelia trusts the advise given and her obedience is very evident in this matter as she avoids contact with Hamlet until she is told by her father, with the King and Queens approval, to meet up with him by 'accident' in the lobby. Deceit not being in her nature, believing that her father, the king and queen are right and true; that Hamlet is mad; and probably curious to know if Hamlet is "mad in love" with her the young, obedient, powerless Ophelia does her part to search out the truth. But tragically this one forced step outside of her true character begins her downfall. In a precarious predicament, loyalty to her father compelled Ophelia to lie to Hamlet when he asked about her father?s location at that moment saying he was at home instead of behind a tapestry right the...
In Elizabethan times, Ophelia is restricted as a woman. She is obedient to the commands of the men in her life although she often attempts to do the right thing. Polonius, Laertes, and Hamlet all have a grasp on Ophelia and who she is. She does not have the freedom to change her fate as Hamlet does. Shawna Maki states, “Ophelia’s life is determined by the whims of men who control her” (1). Polonius takes advantage of his relationship with Ophelia by using her to achieve a better relationship with Claudius. Polonius and Laertes teach Ophelia how to behave, therefore, abusing their power in allowing Ophelia to become who she wants to be (Brown 2).
Throughout Hamlet, Shakespeare makes it evident that Ophelia is very unstable. She continuously changes her mind about the way she feels. Laertes and Polonius command her to do things that she does not agree with, but she does them with no argument. Afraid to stand up for herself, she stands back and watches everyone else control her life. In Shakespeare's Hamlet, Ophelia is treated as a marionette with her strings in the hands of the people around her; however, Kenneth Branagh portrays her as independent and innocent, ignoring Shakespeare's representation of her as feeble-minded through complete male dominance in her thoughts and actions, her indecisiveness, and digression into madness.
Ophelia's insanity is driven by the fact that she has basically been cut out of Hamlet's life. " Like sweet bells jangled, out of time and harsh,/ That unmatched form and feature of blown youth/ Blasted with ecstasy" (III.i. 158-160).Her role as an "innocent lady" is to complete the picture of faithfulness and obedience. Without Hamlet, it is difficult for Ophelia to fulfill her role. Ophelia is completely pushed over the edge whe...
Despite Ophelia’s weak will, the male characters respond dramatically to her actions, proving that women indeed have a large impact in Hamlet. Her obedience is actually her downfall, because it allows the male characters to control and use her in their schemes. 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. One way that her manipulation is key to Hamlet’s plot is when Polonius orders her “in plain terms, from this time forth/ Have you so slander any moment leisure/As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet,” (1.3.131-133). She complies with his wishes, agreeing to return any tokens of Hamlet’s love to him, verify t...
demonstrate her obedience to her father. In the beginning of the play, Ophelia tells her
Ophelia is also a complex character, she is a Northern white American lady, of high education, who dislikes slavery yet is uncomfortable in the presence of a “black blooded” character. This is due to Ophelia believing it is inevitable for those who are “black blooded” to be within slave work, due to being biologically determined. This is something many white readers during the nineteenth century would have also believed. She supports that in the ‘South as well as North, there are women who have an extraordinary talent for command, and tact in educating’ (Stowe 1995, p.191). This quote is from chapter XVIII which sees Ophelia’s attempt to try and reform the house and install some Northern attributes as she goes along.