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Hamlet: The True Cause Of Ophelia's Madness

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In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, two of the most prominent characters, Hamlet and Ophelia, go mad. However, Shakespeare makes certain to leave Hamlet’s madness - and whether or not it is truly real or not - up to the interpretation of the reader, while specifically guiding the reader to believe Ophelia’s madness to be true insanity. In the play, Hamlet’s madness stems from one particular plot point - getting revenge on his uncle, Claudius, for the murder of his father - but the origin of Ophelia’s madness is never particularly revealed to the reader. So, if Ophelia really does go insane, what are the true causes of her madness? The origin of Ophelia’s madness emerges from the affectionate relationship she has with Hamlet and also from …show more content…

Ophelia, at the beginning of the play, is completely enamored by Hamlet and believes, without a doubt, that he truly loves her. However, scholar Carroll Camden writes that Hamlet blindsides her: “[Ophelia] believes, too, that Hamlet loves her; and her actions, if not her words, indicate the patience in which she listens to Hamlet during his mad speech. Yet when she meets him to return his tokens of love, he tells her, ‘I did love you once...you should not have believed me...I loved you not’...[his] tone is ill-mannered and is an affront that Ophelia would feel deeply” (Camden 249). Ophelia is blinded by her love for Hamlet, as she undoubtedly believes he is in love with her and is absolutely heartbroken to find out that he is not. She was invested in their relationship, even believing that they would end up married one day, and to find out that he no longer loves her leaves her humiliated and depressed. She feels betrayed, rejected, deceived, used, and thrown away by Hamlet, which is when her demeanor shifts and she begins to go mad. Furthermore, critic Barbara Smith clarifies that another

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Just one of these traumatic events could make a character go mad, but the combination of the three justifies Ophelia’s madness. The use of these three tragic events in Ophelia’s life makes her madness reasonable. The first event to happen that changes Ophelia’s demeanor is her relationship problems with her boyfriend, Hamlet. In Act III, Scene I of the play, Ophelia says to Hamlet “My lord, I have remembrances of yours, That I have longed long

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Ophelia’s character went through quite a large transformation. In the play her father tells her that she is to stay away from Hamlet and she readily agrees. In the movie Ophelia doesn’t disagree with her father but she also doesn’t agree just to please him. This shows that Ophelia isn’t easily persuaded, even by her own father. Despite her father’s warning about Hamlet, Ophelia met with him in secret at her apartment until her father found out.

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There are two approaches to what madness is: delusion and the behaviors that arise from it, and true knowledge that is merely beyond the comprehension of others. In Hamlet, madness plays a key role in the story, and while Hamlet’s madness is, for the most part, the focus of the play – he is after all the title character – Ophelia's sudden descent into madness is an interesting event. Ophelia’s madness shows itself through the perspective of others, but through her own words, she actually shows herself and her actions to be sane. Depictions of Ophelia’s madness and mad actions come from other characters’ accounts, as well as the transcriber, the editor, and even Shakespeare himself. In act 4, a Gentleman first describes Ophelia as “importunate,

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Ophelia’s madness is caused by the actions of others in the story. “Madness becomes Ophelia’s last resort, her unconscious revolt. Indeed what else is left for her to do? Offering her an escape, madness provides her with the ability to finally speak her anger and desire” (Dane,412).Her father tells her to stay away from Hamlet, who she has fallen in love with. Hamlet has warned her earlier that whatever he tells her in the future will not be true but, when he tells her he does not intent to be with her it starts the beginning of her madness.

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Ophelia goes mad throughout the story. She is overwhelmed by the loss of her father and the rejection of Hamlet. Her character is seen spiraling down a dark path that also ends in death. Ophelia is depicted as not having control over her actions; speaking and acting erratically. While Hamlet is speaking erratically and behaving oddly, he still maintains control over his actions and movement throughout the story.

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Not only did he lose his father at a young age, he also had to see his mother marry his uncle, which would probably really mess with anyone. Even if there aren’t any laws that really make it wrong, it would still probably hurt him, and clearly affected him negatively in the play Finally, the events that happened in Ophelia’s life definitely caused her to be depressed, and not just crazy over her love for Hamlet. First, this is clearly shown when Hamlet, the man she used to love, literally killed her father.

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In conclusion, it can be proven that Hamlet truly does love Ophelia. He pretends he isn’t in love with her kind of like in real life. Sometimes people pretend they not care for the people they really care for the most, just like Hamlet did to

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Ophelia is in love with Hamlet but her family thinks he isn't right for her. In the beginning Laertes is telling Ophelia that she shouldn't see Hamlet anymore. She told him that she was going to keep seeing him besides for what he is saying. A few minutes later her dad, Polonius, joins their conversation and says some things about hamlet that surprises her, so she listens to him and agreed not to see him anymore. Even though what he was saying surprised her, she still believed Hamlet did love her once.

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Hamlet has not only become distraught from his conniving and lying stepfather but also his mother, Queen Gertrude as well. The unfaithfulness that Gertrude shows to Hamlet’s father and Hamlet has a toll on him and plays a part in his insanity. The facade that Hamlet displays slowly leads to his insanity, causing him to show mistreated love towards Ophelia. In the beginning of the play, Ophelia displays a very honest

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This anger, when directed at Ophelia led to her insanity and ultimate suicide. In Shakespeare’s, Hamlet, Prince Hamlet’s need to avenge his father’s death and hatred for his mother unraveled Ophelia’s sanity and led to her downfall. First, Prince Hamlet ’s need to avenge his father’s death, disconnected him from the people around him, which led to the death of Ophelia.

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Hamlet views Ophelia as a naive and ignorant girl who is nothing but Polonius and Claudius's puppet. This was revealed when Hamlet said "God has given you one face and you make yourself another. . You jig and amble, and you lisp, you nickname God's creatures and make your wantonness your ignorance." (III, i, 143-146) In this quote Hamlet knows that Ophelia is spying on him for Polonius and Claudius.

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But Ophelia also had some madness of her own that caused her suicide. Ophelia was also grieving over her father's, Polonius, death. Ophelia's death results from Hamlet's madness and his telling Ophelia that she needs to go to a nunnery. The cause of Ophelia's suicide was mainly from Hamlet's madness.

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Despite all the reasons throughout the play to show that Hamlet did not in fact love Ophelia, I believe he may have loved her in some sense. Hamlet may or may not have been hopelessly in love with Ophelia but he definitely felt some sort of love for her. Evidence of his love for her is shown massively by how he responds to learning of about her unfortunate death. In Act V, it is revealed that Ophelia had drowned herself, later in the act, Hamlet discovers the truth.

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Ophelia stops loving Hamlet when her brother and father told her. Also, the news that Hamlet turned into a mad person weakened her more. Her father's death makes her more insane. Ophelia kills herself because she could not take the death of her father being killed by her love. And Hamlet asked her to become a nun which weakened her and eventually made her kill herself.

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Hamlet does not value Ophelia 's feelings he belittles her. In Hamlets defense this is the way he was brought up to treat women, during that time this was a common way to treat a women. Even though in today 's society it is not at all ok to treat women with such disrespect. He also likes for everything to go as planned and this may result in why he can not have a stable relationship with a woman. This also causes him to have many stumbling blocks in his life that causes some emotional pain

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