Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • Free Essays • My Term Papers • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - Shakespeare Ophelias Role in Hamlet Ophelias Role in Hamlet In Hamlet, one of the many things Shakespeare shows us is how the world can change a person, how certain circumstances can knock a person so out of proportion with who they used to be that they take on a new persona, a new identity. One such character is Ophelia, a young, innocent girl, who, throughout the play is torn between father and lover, accused of not being as innocent as she seems, and finally driven to insanity. In the end, she is driven to suicide, an innocent victim of the world around her. We first meet Ophelia when she is talking with her brother Laertes, who attempting to educate her about the ways of the world. He warns her not to get too close to Hamlet, for Hamlet is “subject to his birth,” (1.3, 18) he cannot choose who he loves. His caring advice for his sister, though, is lined with undertones of accusation. He warns her that even “the chariest maid is prodigal enough,”(1.3, 36) implying that even though she may seem modest, but her intentions could very well be the opposite. He attacks her virginal nature, heaving the burden of other, more crass, women upon this frail beauty. She, though a member of the more seemingly dim and weak sex, replies very wittily to this, “Do not, as some ungracious pastors do...reck not his own rede.” (1.3, 47-51), advising, and possibly implying, the same things to her dear brother, showing their mutual respect for each other. Polonius is the next to step in with words of advice to his daughter. Rather than simply giving her advice as an equal, he chastises her for her behavior. He talks down to her, tells her to “think yourself a baby” (1.3, 106), as if she does not have a mind of her own. While Ophelia has yet to prove otherwise, Polonius’s immediately accuses that she has been less than virginal. “Tender yourself more dearly or...your tender me a fool.”(1.3, 108-110), he says, almost as if he has been expecting an illegitimate child from his daughter! He commands to make herself less available to Hamlet, and she, being the obedient daughter she is, quietly obeys. Ophelia, already somewhat hurt and appalled by the expectations both her father and her brother hold for her, meets up with Hamlet. Their meeting was set up by Claudius and Polonius, in the hope that the cause for Hamlets madness lies in Ophelia. Much to everyone’s surprise, even Hamlet questions her virginity, although he is much more blunt about it than either Polonius. Ophelia, quite taken aback by this, seems to loose her wit she had displayed with Laertes, and her strength and determination with her father defending her love for Hamlet. All she can do is sit, and listen to this madman tell her, “I loved you not.”(3.1,120) To add insult to injury, Hamlet quickly tells her “get thee to a nunnery,” (3.1, 122) implying she get herself into a brothel, become a prostitute. He speaks to her as if he is appalled by the fact that she could possibly be a sexual being; he sees her as all other men see women, they are either housewives or prostitutes, and to fall anywhere in between meant you were hiding some deep dark secret. We have yet to receive clarification about such matters between Hamlet and Ophelia, except what others have accused. Yet, Hamlet states that he is himself “indifferent honest”(3.1, 123), leaving Ophelia the same, for she has had no other relationship than with Hamlet himself. After Hamlet leaves her, she, in an effort to find manner for this madness, immediately excuses it as an act of a madman, a noble mind overthrown. The continuing saga of Ophelia’s sexual liberty is resurfaced the night of the play. Hamlet, under the disguise of madness, lies his head in Ophelia’s lap. After she refuses to let him do so, he accuses her of thinking about “country matters,” (3.2, 114), pretending that his intentions were not of a sexual nature, and that she, being the sexual being that she is, got the wrong idea. Of course, he then expresses his own feeling on the matter, for it’s “a fair thought to lie between maiden’s legs.” (3.2, 116-117) As if Ophelia hasn’t already been frustrated by the accusations of impurity from her father, brother, and lover, she is now not allowed to show any signs of sexual thinking or independence, whereas Hamlet can say what’s on his mind and no one think the worse of him. She has been brought down by the expectations and implications of her sex once again. To make matters worse for this poor girl, her father is slain by the man who she loves. She is placed into an interesting situation, for, even though her father did love her and care for her, he never treated her as a person. Instead, she was just some pet that he had to teach right and wrong to. She did, though, love her father, as any good child should, and obeyed him when she was told. Any person could easily become distraught over losing the person that has brought them up, and taught them right from wrong. We never met, or heard of Ophelia’s mother, so it is implied that she is either dead or left. All she is left with is her father and her brother, and when one is away and the other brutally slaughtered, what else is she to do but go mad? Then, there is the fact that the man she had once believed to have loved, in madness and rage, killed her father. Undoubtedly, she has not lost her feelings for Hamlet, but was crushed when he was among those to have accused her of the sins of her sex. He had told her, to her face that he loved her not, and the only love she had ever known in her life was now denying that there had ever been love between them. Coupled with the mental distress of losing her father to her love, accusations of impurity, missing her brother, and her only love denying that there was ever anything there, Ophelia simply goes insane. Honestly, who’s to blame her? The sweet, virginal girl has been accused of being less than such, even her only love accuses her of it. Not to mention the fact that her only love could deny the only relationship with love she has ever experienced. Then, that same love kills her father, the only family she has near Eilsnore to speak of. Her insanity, in contrast to Hamlet’s, is very real. It is not an act, nor is it a ploy for attention. She has seriously gone insane. But her insanity gives her a freedom of sorts. No longer does she have to worry about how to act or what to say, she may act or say however she feels at the moment. Some of her songs have the same sort of crude sexual allusions Hamlet was allowed, but not Ophelia. Her songs, though loaded with themes of love, sex, and desertion, are not the real Ophelia. She, due to her insanity, has no real purpose in saying these things, instead, they are just free expressions of the topics which prevail in her mind. In one scene of madness, Ophelia talks of flowers, and gives certain types to certain people. Rosemary and pansies are given specifically to Laertes, the rosemary for remembrance, and the pansies for thought. While rosemary is a symbol for remembrance, it is also a symbol of fidelity, love and loyalty. Violets are mentioned in regard to her father, and how “they all withered away when my [her] father died” (4.6, 188-189)Other flowers, such as rue for repentance, columbines for ingratitude, daisies for faithlessness, and fennel for flattery are given out. Their meanings are very clear, but to whom they were given to is left to interpretation. One might guess that the rue was given to Claudius to symbolize his need for repentance after the murder of his brother, and the incestuous life that he has thus lived. The fennel and the columbine are given to the same person, yet to whom this would be is uncertain. The climax of Ophelia’s story is by far, her tragic and romantic suicide. She had “fell in the weeping brook...till that her garments, heavy with their drink, pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay to muddy death.”(4.7,176-184) She died among her flowers, among “crowflowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples”(4.7,170), a portrait of innocence lost, of romance and love forgotten, of torn soul and broken heart. Daisies are the symbols of innocence, for this once innocent girl grew up and in doing so she had lost all sanity. Gertrude woefully describes her death, yet this romantic suicide seems to fit her perfectly, for even in death, she was a beauteous creature. Yet, the drama did not end in suicide. A hasty burial in hallowed ground was her fate, Laertes worrying about the ceremony being too short, as if she had not received enough blessing and preparation for the afterlife. Gertrude mentions how she would’ve loved if she had married Hamlet, maybe an act of grief and politeness at death, but still, the irony remains. Hamlet ruins his cover and cries about how much he had loved her, yet if he had loved her so much in life why did he treat her so badly? All of the characters seem to twinge with guilt at this untimely death, as though they know that they had been responsible for this tragedy in part. “When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.”(4.5, 79-80) For Ophelia, this statement rings true even after death. None of the events that made her go insane were because of her own faults; she had be the good, innocent, virginal young maid. She was abused, mentally and sometimes physically, by every single character in the play. Yet, by no fault of her own, she got caught up in the selfish acts of others. These selfish acts victimized this sweet maid, leading her to her untimely death. Bibliography: Word Count: 1695
Copyright © 1998-2008 College Term Papers, INC All Rights Reserved. DMCA Notifications and Requests