After the death of her father and departure of Hamlet, Ophelia arrives at the castle and pays an unsolicited visit to the royal majesties. She sings, “Young men will do’t, if they come to’t./ By Cock, they are to blame” (4.5.60-61). This passage is often interpreted as Ophelia airing the grievances that Hamlet has committed toward her--namely, he used her solely for sexual pleasure and discarded her when he lost interest. In summary, Ophelia exposes the double standard prevalent in her society: to a man, a woman’s value lies only in her virginity. She blames “Cock”, which represents the patriarchy at large, for society’s willingness to excuse male lust and irresponsibility. This is often presented in a “boys will be boys” or “He can do x because …show more content…
When Laertes arrives back from Paris, he confront Claudius at the castle, only to have Ophelia interrupt him. Upon hearing her song, he remarks, “This nothing’s more than matter” (4.5.173). The reason that these meaningless words mean more than words with meaning is because they are in fact not meaningless. Ophelia is still very much conscious and perceptive as before, except unlike before, she is verbalizing her thoughts and observations. Although she still retains some gender appropriate behaviors in this enlightened state--like encrypting her intent in song form instead of blurting them out--her assertive tone, unabashedness, and willingness to take action all contradict her previous teachings. Thus, Ophelia’s “madness” is determined by the extent to which she subverts female gender expectations. The more she exhibits traits traditionally associated with men, the more “mad” she becomes. In this context, Ophelia serves as both a caricature and a warning against female enlightenment as told through a patriarchal lense. She is ultimately ostracized from society, implying that women who seek freedom will receive the same fate as
Ophelia, a beautiful, delicate, well-behaved young woman, who is in love with the prince of Denmark, must constantly obey men throughout the play. Ultimately, she must decide between Hamlet and her father because she has no power. In her line, "I shall obey my lord" (1-3-145), Shakespeare dramatizes that young women with no power,
As the innocent victim of Hamlet’s feigned madness, Ophelia’s insanity is a product of her inability to cope with Hamlet and her father’s death. Her songs show hidden grief and sorrow; her flowers represent the fact that beneath the innocent exterior, there is a weakness or flaw in everyone. Hamlet was able to look past his grief for his father’s death, but he caused someone he loves to be in pain. Whether it is the frailty of women, sorrow, or death, anything, including love, can appear to be pleasant, but can be the ultimate cause of a person’s
Ophelia rebuffed the advice, yelling at Laertes to stop instructing her how to live and to go about living his own life without interfering with hers. He tells Ophelia not to be afraid (Act 1, Scene 3). Hence, he portrays the patriarchal idea by demonstrating his lack of regard for Ophelia and her thoughts. In Hamlet, Ophelia was treated like an object in addition to the patriarchal purpose.
Feminism has gained a new definition a new understanding of female roles since the Elizabethan Era. Hamlet, a play written by William Shakespeare, is about a young prince, Hamlet, being visited by his father’s apparition urging him to avenge his death by murdering Prince Hamlet’s uncle, Claudius. All the while, Hamlet is enraged by his mother’s hasty marriage to Claudius and is showering his supposed love, Ophelia, with gifts and words of affection. Queen Gertrude and Ophelia are blindly obedient to male authority due to the influence of the social standards that require women to be submissive to men. Queen Gertrude and Ophelia’s actions and outcomes as characters are affected by male influence, the social norms of this time, and the females’ consequences of following these norms.
Every modern society since the beginning of time has painted the female as frail and individuals at the mercy of men, unable to reap the same freedoms and aspirations as their male counterparts. The English Renaissance is no different as women were not allowed to play themselves on stage, and more often than not were seen as weak characters in their portrayal. In Shakespeare's “Hamlet”, all the female protagonists all have flaws that eventually leads to them meeting their deaths. The characters of Ophelia and Gertrude are two different women trapped in the same predicament, partly being due to the inefficacy of being taken seriously, and are therefore perceived as feeble women; looking at the persona of Ophelia, she tends to follow the direction
In The Tragedy of Hamlet , by William Shakespeare, some of the most significant events are mental or psychological events that make the audience feel and have an emotional connection with the characters. Moreover, these significant events are categorized as new awakenings, discoveries, and changes in consciousness that set off a mental or psychological effect to the readers. The author, Shakespeare, gives these internal events to characters such as Ophelia, Gertrude, and Hamlet throughout the play to give the sense of excitement, suspense, and climax which associate with their external action. Ophelia is the daughter of Polonius and the sister of Laertes, who both tell her to stop seeing Hamlet. To Polonius, Ophelia is an eternal virgin who
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.
He is disappointed to see that Ophelia is displaying irrational behavior when she begins to sing “They bore him barefac’d on the bier; Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny; And on his grave rains many a tear.” She is so mentally ill that she must be locked in a padded room during the day. At other times, she is in a straight jacket to prevent her from hurting herself. It seems as if nothing can help her mental madness.
For the duration of the play, Ophelia was portrayed as a naïve and submissive woman. Her passivity and powerlessness reinforce the voicelessness of women during the Elizabethan era. For example, “I shall obey, my lord” (I.iii.134) shows that Ophelia concedes to her father’s will, even though she believes Hamlet’s love is genuine. She is willing and expected to obey her father despite the fact that she still loves Hamlet, which emphasizes her character’s submissive nature. Furthermore, in Act I Laertes warns Ophelia that it would be shameful of her to love Hamlet, and she responds with “I shall the effect of this good lesson keep as a watchman to my heart” (I.iii.45).
Consequently, Hamlet’s view of women being adulterous not only root from his mother; however, they root from his misogynistic tendencies as
In her soliloquy, she bemoans what she considers to be Hamlet’s descent into complete insanity. Along with William Shakespeare’s creative and meaningful plot, his way of writing and the inclusion of figurative language bring about a more interesting look to the text. For these first six lines of Ophelia’s soliloquy, Ophelia is describing Hamlet and how he has changed. She starts her soliloquy with “O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
Saying this, Hamlet’s behavior towards Ophelia is crude, rough, and full of anger. Despite Hamlet’s harsh treatment towards Ophelia, he really did love her, but because she was not his main focus, the
As a young woman of the 1600’s Ophelia is most likely unaware of the patriarchy that shadows above her. “I do not know my lord, what should I think?”. Ophelia is so unsure about her affair with Hamlet that she
These crude comments Hamlet says to Ophelia continue throughout the play until Ophelia is being buried when Hamlet asserts that he loved Ophelia. The male character’s treatment of Ophelia and Gertrude make them appear to be ineffectual
Women have suffered an extreme misdeed by men throughout the history. Women in Shakespearean times were bounded with their husbands and their fathers, the women weren’t expected to do much rather that just looking pretty and not talking. In the play Hamlet women are mistreated and are shown in Shakespeare novel. There are women that have experienced exploitation in the novel. Hamlet poor mistreatment and misjudgment of Ophelia, her behavior started to change throughout the novel and eventually she ended up killing herself.