between her loyalties to her lover on one hand and her father and brother on the other”(269). Those words had a strong impact on the way Ophelia viewed her relationship with Hamlet, however it could not change her feelings. The fact that Ophelia is just a young girl often gets lost when analyzing her behavior. She is young and fairly innocent, looking for acceptance. Her withstanding Hamlet’s constant verbal abuse and mood swings show the fact that she is still quite naive. Her desire for Hamlet is obvious through her reaction when he tells her “ Get thee to a nunnery” (3.1.121). Hamlet continues to degrade Ophelia and she responds by saying “ O, help him, you sweet heavens!” (3.1.129). This is an obvious example of her desire for acceptance as well as love from Hamlet. These constant verbal barrages from Hamlet eventually take their toll. Her behavior begins to vary between sanity and madness. The act that pushed her from partial sanity to insanity was Claudius’s banishment of Hamlet to England, along with Hamlet’s murder of her father. With Hamlet gone she lost all hope of reconciliation and intimacy, as well as acceptance. She begins doing strange things that indicate her lunacy. She sings strange songs and makes remarks to Claudius about their lives. Claudius asks “ Conceit upon her father” (4.5.44) and she reacts by saying “Pray let’s have no words of this...” (4.5.45). She goes on singing her Valentines Song to Claudius“By Gis and by Saint Charity,Alack, and he for shame!Young men will do’t, if they come to’t;By Cock, they are to blameQuoth she, ` Before you tumbled me,You promised me to wed.’” (4.5.57-62)The words of that song seem to point to Ophelia’s bitterness over the way Hamlet treated her. Also the thought that a girl would sing that type of song in the presence of the king indicates that ...
