Hamlet Argument: When One Faces Tribulations Or Hardships In Life

At one point in time, Ophelia was one who Hamlet truly loved and trusted. Ophelia comes and speaks to hamlet to return his gifts from her but Hamlet immediately realizes that something is wrong and finds out that Ophelia is being used by Claudius and Polonius to spy on him to find out the real reason of Hamlet’s facade of madness. After realizing this, Hamlet is incensed and acts as if he is truly insane. Hamlet is clearly hurt because of the fact that Ophelia has been as a pawn in Claudius’ game. The effects of the matter cause him to verbally abuse Ophelia and rejects her love by saying that they will never get married and also degrades women. At this point Hamlet is raged and does not understand how harsh his words can be to a woman, especially a human being in general. In conclusion, the death of Hamlet’s father had looked like as if it has not even affected his mother which he so dearly loved and the one true love he thought he had, seems to him as deceiving and just a pawn for his enemies. These factors continue to diminish the subordinate attitude that Hamlet has towards

By his cockle hat and staff and his sandal shoon.” (V. IV. 23-26) This shows how Ophelia has became crazy over Hamlet’s inability to show affection towards her and him rejecting her. Ophelia’s madness soon spirals into her commuting suicide by drowning herself in the river. This can be linked to Nietzche’s statement that there is some madness in love, as Ophelia’s love for Hamlet caused her to become crazy. Hamlet also shows signs of madness due to his relationship with Ophelia. Throughout the play it is unknown to the audience if Hamlet truly has feelings for Ophelia. It is not until Act V that the audience becomes aware of Hamlet’s true feelings when he finds out about Ophelia’s death, Hamlet states, “ I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers could not with all their quantity of love make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?” (V.I. 255-257) This shows how Hamlet become mad with rage and sorrow as he hears of her death, finally revealing his true feelings. This relates to Nietzche’s statement that there is some madness in love, as Hamlet has not been able to show his true feeling for Ophelia, and once he become aware of her death he is filled with sorrow. This madness is shown when Hamlet develops a plan to fool everyone to thinking he is crazy.

The name Ophelia has been most commonly associated with William Shakespeare's play, Hamlet, where she is referred to as the title character's mad lover. She is believed to have killed herself out of madness by drowning herself in a river. Interpretations about Ophelia's character have ranged from being a woman who lost her sanity upon her father, Polonius' death to being the object of hatred by Hamlet. However, despite her supporting character in the play, her personality has roused numerous criticisms and interpretations from philosophers and critics. This is probably due to the fact that her role in the play is more of a descriptive character rather than a speaking

Hamlet's surrounding are increasingly affected by his flaw. Hamlet begins to forget all important obligations in his life and neglects his responsibilities, causing other problems. One very important commitment Hamlet has which he lets go is his relationship with Ophelia. Ophelia becomes very confused and hurt. Hamlet hurts her in a couple of ways. First, he neglects her, and second, he insults her. "Ha, ha! Are you honest??Are you fair??That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty. ?I loved you not? Get thee to a nunnery." Then Hamlet kills Polonius, Ophelia's father, which in turn makes her go mad and in her madness she commits suicide. Hamlet loses objectivity. He does not respect the King nor his mother's feelings. Hamlet meets with his mother and insults her. He calls her a whore and a sinner for marrying a murderer. Since he knows that the King is a murderer, he attempts

Making use of her dutiful and obedient personality, Hamlet victimizes Ophelia and her lack of resistance to his treatment is paralleled in her surrender to the water and subsequent drowning. In a fit of rage, Hamlet angrily denounces Ophelia and claims to have fallen out of love with her:

In Act III scene i, Polonius and the King hide behind Ophelia's curtains and eavesdrop on the conversation between Hamlet and Ophelia. Hamlet goes on to scold Ophelia and accuse her of not being chaste "Ha, ha! Are you honest?" ... "Are you fair?" ... "Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be / a breeder of sinners?" Hamlet goes on to say "...This was sometime a paradox, but now / the time gives it proof. I did love you once." Ophelia replies with "Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so." Her heart must have torn in two when Hamlet came back with "You should not have believed me, for virtue / cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish / of it. I loved you not." Hamlet admits that he was deceiving her the whole time. This was likely a major factor in Ophelia's descent into madness and eventually, death. Again, Ophelia is the victim.

Ophelia is Hamlet’s love interest throughout the entire play. However, in an attempt to be strategic, Hamlet feigns insanity in order to be deceiving and in turn breaks Ophelia's heart. His sudden disinterest towards her coupled with her father Polonius and brother Laertes’ commands to stay away from Hamlet composes a dire internal conflict within Ophelia's mind. She is torn between her undying love for Hamlet versus her desire to be an obedient daughter and sister. In addition, Hamlet unintentionally murders Polonius rather than Claudius, which also adds to Ophelia's insanity. To make matter worse, Ophelia has no mother figure within her life. So taken all together, she is stuck in a constant battle within herself with nobody who is there for her. “I hope all will be well. We must be patient/ but I cannot choose but weep/ to think they would lay him/ i' th' cold ground” (Hamlet v, iv). This quote from Ophelia demonstrates her deep sorrow towards her father's death, as well as the start of her path to insanity. Her lack of a maternal figure leaves her with nobody to discuss her feelings and troubles with. Because of this constant battle within her life, Ophelia finds herself in a confrontation with her emotions, which ends in her official decision of suicide. Which one could argue makes her decisive in the end which may be true, but her internal struggle leading to her choice of suicide is what makes her a great example of a character struggling with uncertainty during times of

He therefore had to act mad even when talking to her because he realized his every move was being watched. This is evident when he told her he is not in love with her and that he never loved her. These statements by Hamlet caused him to inadvertently hurt Ophelia to such a great extent that she committed suicide. As a result, Hamlet was forced to permanently sacrifice his true love out of concern for his own safety and his goal.

Ophelia’s role in Hamlet is a very tragic one, because in all honesty, she was one of the most innocent characters of them all. She loved her father dearly, but he was taken away from her by complete accident. As Ophelia’s story progressed, her composure slowly started slipping away from her when she sang to Gertrude and Claudius about her father’s death and starts taking off her clothes (Act 4, scene v). When

Throughout the book, Ophelia is saddened as she watches Hamlet deteriorate in his grief, and when these feelings are accompanied by her father’s death, her condition escalates to a point where even stage directions read, “Enter Ophelia, distracted” (4.5.19). When translated to more modern language, this reads “Enter Ophelia, insane” and her aloofness in the following scene portrays how strained she is as she struggles to bottle up all the pain she is experiencing. Ophelia’s state only intensifies as the story continues, and eventually the Queen explains that Ophelia has fallen into a river and drowned (4.7.162-180). Given the circumstances, this “drowning” can be interpreted as a suicide, which for readers, depicts an exaggeration of the internalization of

Ophelia, ever since her introduction, has been introduced to be a sweet and sympathetic person, providing the play with emotional moments, but her death was used as a bait and switch by Shakespeare towards audience members who had expected her to change the play’s somber mood to more hopeful one, which in turn makes the play even more tragic. After she had been visited by an apparently crazed Hamlet, she tells Polonius about the visit, prompting him to believe that the young prince is crazy in love, and goes out to tell the king. After it was explained to Claudius, and Hamlet’s former friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern failed to find the underlying cause of his madness, Polonius makes Ophelia approach Hamlet while he and the king hide and monitor his behavior.

The play, Hamlet opens with the ghost of the late King Hamlet appearing to the guards. before the play began, the King was found dead in the palace gardens. The appearance of the late King's ghost suggest the murder of the King. When the ghost appears to Hamlet, Hamlet learns that his father was murdered by his brother, Claudius. Within the First Act, readers are able to conclude that the murderer by Claudius

Ophelia honestly and truly wants to help Hamlet but she still feels the sting of him ignoring her so their talk begins somewhat cordial. She continually addresses him as my lord or lordship rather than by his name which is what lovers would do. (III.1.99,102,106,112,114,116,119,126) However, she does not address him as my lord after Hamlet says he did not truly love her and she replies, “I was the more deceived.” This is the point where her heart first begins to break and the wound only deepens the more Hamlet talks and insults her. By the end of his mad talk Ophelia is in absolute turmoil. “And I, of ladies most deject and wretched” entails she believes him when he says she turns men into monsters and should go to a nunnery. (III.1.169) “

In a split second, she is placed in a situation where she has to chose between her loyalty to her father, or her own conviction. She chose to lie to Hamlet rather than reveal her father. This is her fatal flaw. Hamlet, knowing she is lying to him, goes on a rant and not only denounces his feelings for her, he questions her integrity and refers to her as a whore (Act 3, Scene 1, Line 111-115). Hamlet is crude in his own day by asking Ophelia "Lady, shall I lie in your lap?" (Act 3, Scene II, Line 109) Ophelia had deserved the treatment she received from Hamlet. Hamlet was fed up with Ophelia ignoring him and trying to stay away from him. Even with the betrayal she was just going through all the commands of her father and brother but you should not need anyone telling you who to love. From her betraying Hamlet and the denouncing of his love, this confrontation begins Ophelia true descent into insanity.

As a result of spending her life under the protection of her father and his orders, due to her submissive nature, Ophelia remains naive and unaware of the deceit and bitterness surrounding her which renders her incapable of facing the harsh realities of life once her father dies and Hamlet leaves her. After the death of her father and with the absence of both Laertes and Hamlet from her life at the time, Ophelia is driven to madness and Gertrude explains it the King: “She speaks much of her father, says she hears there’s tricks i ' the ' world, and hems, and beats her heart, spurns enviously at straws, speaks things in doubt that carry but half sense.” Finally seeing the grim reality of her surroundings without her father to hide behind, Ophelia loses her sanity and eventually end her own life as she no longer knows how to lead an independent life. In conclusion, Ophelia is portrayed as a puppet on strings being pulled around by the males in her life, making all her decisions and controlling what she can and can’t do, and once all the men are gone, she no longer able to function on her own and she ends her life as a result.