How Does Ophelia Commit Suicide In Hamlet

In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, suicide is one of the most important and reoccurring themes in the play. Shakespeare’s main purpose in creating this theme throughout the play is that the world is made up of death. Since the murder of his father, Hamlet, the main character in the play, contemplates suicide many times. Shakespeare exhibits this major theme when Hamlet ponders suicide, Ophelia commits suicide, Gertrude commits suicide through independent action, and the suicide of the entire royal family.
Hamlet is quite often perceived as being on the verge of suicide. In the play Hamlet contemplates suicide a various number of times. Hamlet rejects the idea of suicide as being against God’s will in act 1, scene 2 “…would…that the Everlasting had not fixed his canon ‘against self-slaughter!” (Shakespeare 14). In act 1, scene 5 Hamlet wishes he was never born after the ghost of his father reveals the truth of his death. Hamlet exhibits more suicidal thoughts in act 2, scene 2 when his self-

Hamlet went mad when he found out his father was murdered by his uncle and Ophelia went mad from neglect and rejection. Ophelia, as the play goes on, gets worse and worse starting with Hamlet denying that he ever loved her and berating her for being dishonest. Hamlet has not confided in her about his anger with his mother and the murder of his father, therefore she is confused by how easily it was for him to crush her faith in love. The rest of Ophelia’s downfall comes when her father, Polonius, is murdered by Hamlet. This unbearable loss and rejection leads to an unendurable extent of anxiety and ultimately leads to her death. Ophelia’s downfall came when she climbed a tree to hang garlands and fell into a brook; the fact that she had time to save herself and did not exhibits an intentional death; “It is the outcome of a neglected, fearful psyche confronted by impossible demands and unbearable emotional trauma.” (Smith