Creative Writing: Where Are We Going Ophelia

Ophelia is accustomed to having her father speak on her behalf, as well as being dependent on him for emotional support. Her absolute dependence means Ophelia does not know how to cope and reason on her own. Being left to grieve alone, she does not have an objective perspective or someone to bring her back to her senses, and therefore becomes overwhelmed by her emotions. Having no control over the intensity of how to feel and act is a very unhealthy way to cope. Her grief makes her speak “nothing”, and those who hear her are left to doubt and “think there might be thought”, although they cannot be sure about what she really means.

Ophelia is a very interesting and confused character in William Shakespeare's play Hamlet. She has so many moments where she is hanging onto her sanity by a thread, and one small thing could set her off. Ophelia illustrates character traits leading to her tragic downfall, including innocence, ignorance, and distraught actions.

In the beginning of the play, it is clear through her thoughts and actions that that Ophelia is an obedient person. But upon closer inspection, the audience can see that she is not merely an obedient, but completely dependent and weak character. In fact, her needy nature is unmistakable from the beginning. OPH: “I do not know, my lord, what I should think.” POL: “Marry, I will teach you. Think yourself a baby…” (Act I, Scene III, lines 105-106) Her cruel clashings with Hamlet, which go against her feelings for him,

Especially after finding out that her once boyfriend had killed her loving father, “I would/ give you some violets, but they withered all when/ my father died” (4.5.207-209). She knows she made a mistake but yet she can’t forgive herself, for the events that happened. “There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance./ I pray you, love, remember” (4.5.199-200), We could say that insanity has definitely taken over Ophelia only because of Prince Hamlet and her father's death but because she doesn't know what the true meaning/ feeling of love really is, and she desperately wants it. Ophelia’s insanity drives her mind to places she would never imagine, “...she chanted snatches of old lauds,/ As one incapable of her own distress” (4.7.202-203). There’s a point in her insanity when all she wants is to end everything, she is convinced that Prince Hamlet would never forgive/ be able to love her ever again and her father being dead make his love for her disappear as well, so at this point she feels alone and not wanted. “As we have warranty. Her death was doubtful” (5.1.234). Her death was expected but not in the way she did it. Her resort was the water, the way the whole world just fades above you and the warm feeling you get when your mind leaves and enters

Even in death, she displays yielding and passive behavior: Ophelia does not have the intention of committing suicide, though she fails to save herself from sinking. She is essentially a casualty of a society that enforces unreasonable expectations for its women and is never afforded the liberty of thinking for herself and making her own judgments and decisions. Her passive death represents the lack of control she has over her own person and the dependence she has developed on other people. Therefore, Ophelia is mentally unstable and not capable of realizing that her life is on the line. Ophelia is trained by the men in her life to be compliant with their demands, preventing her from practicing her autonomy and enabling her to be easily manipulated by Hamlet.

In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Ophelia is the most static character in the play. Instead of changing through the course of the play, she remains suffering in the misfortunes perpetrated upon her. She falls into insanity and dies a tragic death. Ophelia has issues surviving without a male influence, and her downfall is when all the men in her life abandon her. Hamlet’s Ophelia, is a tragic, insane character that cannot exist on her own.

Yet to Hamlet, Ophelia is no better than another Gertrude: both are tender of heart but submissive to the will of importunate men, and so are forced into uncharacteristic vices. Both would be other than what they are, and both receive Hamlet’s exhortations

However, it would be erroneous to assume that the nobility cannot discern that Ophelia’s death was suicide altogether. Gertrude’s admission that Ophelia appeared “As one incapable of her own distress/or like a native creature and indued/ Unto that element” (4.7.203-205) reveals her awareness of Ophelia’s despondency. Still, though,

It is fair and reasonable that Ophelia commit a suicide. His farther died because of her boy friend. Ophelia lost her two most important persons in her life. She thought she had not dependence in the world. Ophelia’s death is the critical point in act 3.

Ophelia love is not genuine, and therefore treats her with disgust. He assaults Ophelia with words,

Ophelia goes insane and it is very unfair, this young lady who had a somewhat perfect life, have everything snatched away from her one by one. Who Ophelia once was is diminished to someone who cannot even hold a sane conversation that others can understand, she rambles on and on but it seems that no one can quite grasp what she means. It is speculated that she has gone mad due to how Hamlet broke up with her and how he father did not receive a christian as well as a combination of other events based on what she rambles about (IV,v, 20-47). Even with her peaceful and somewhat ditsy behavior, she had dark thoughts that became a reality, Ophelia ended up killing herself in the end of all of this (IV, viii, 159-180). Besides, how her loved ones treated her, Ophelia was a victim of the times.

This is the woman she might have become – warm, tolerant and imaginative. Instead she becomes jagged, benighted and imaginative. . . .Ophelia is made mad not only by circumstance but by something in herself. A personality forced into such deep hiding that it has seemed almost vacant, has all the time been so painfully open to impressions that they now usurp her reflexes and take possession of her. She has loved, or been prepared to love, the wrong man; her father has brought disaster on himself, and she has no mother: she is terribly lonely. (73-74)

character. Ophelia’s dependence on others is, sadly, what lead to her death. She could not

Left alone, Kalyssa stepped to the side of the foot traffic on the street, keeping the solid wall of a building at her back while she took a moment to survey the street. Deciding to keep her ten o’clock meeting with Phenix, and although she didn’t wear a watch, the amount of foot traffic around said she was cutting it fine; she made her way to the teahouse.

stains on the floor from where dad was stabbed , the house itself had not been cleaned in forever , just a complete shit hole. We walked into the kitchen waiting for the coffee to finish brewing . I watched Karen holding her empty mug spinning