ther. At this point, her brother is in France, and her lover appears insane. When Hamlet kills her father, there is no one to direct her any longer. Ophelia has never had to make up her own mind and has in fact been dissuaded from doing exactly that. In Act I, Scene III, Polonius says to Ophelia, "think yourself a baby,"and tells her to stop believing Hamlet's vows and instead to believe him. The loss of everyone important to her permits the final breakdown to her madness.This particular theme of madness, in Hamlet's case, could be seen as a kind of mirror. "The reasons the characters come up with for Hamlet's madness reflect the preoccupations of the observers," says Ian Delaney, founder of "A Short Course on William Shakespeare" which features intense study of Hamlet. In Hamlet's case, Claudius thinks he has a hidden secret (III, i) since Claudius himself has a hidden secret. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern think that Hamlet's ambition is the cause of his madness since they themselves are ambitious. In this same way, Laertes thinks that through her madness, Ophelia is trying to tell him to take revenge for her father (IV, v), a route he has decided on already. The characters naturally thought that the reason for other's madness would reflect upon what was already apparent about themselves within their own thoughts.Shakespeare used the theme of madness to show a very important idea that is portrayed in a number of his works. The point that Shakespeare was trying to make in Hamlet was that we often cannot tell what is reality and what is not. Although Hamlet's madness cannot be proven to be false, it also cannot be proved genuine. He fooled many people in the play into thinking he was insane, but I believe he was actually very sane the entire time. Hamlet's (possibly feigned) madness of playing with Ophelia's mind and then killing her father drove Ophelia to insanity, which, in turn, affected the outcome of the entire play. Wh...
