The significance of Ophelia's madness is to signify her losing two of the most important men in her life,
Ophelia's drowning is the consummate representation of an eternal retreat into the feminine, trading an individual voice for eternal silence in union with feminine essence. In turn, her death expresses the danger of reducing an individual to his or her gender and disregarding the voice of the marginalized.
Ophelia uses flowers as symbols of her deep sorrow and grief. She is very upset because her father, Polonius, has just been killed by Hamlet. Being a sensitive and intelligent young woman, Ophelia needs to express herself, and she does so by passing out flowers to the court in her seeming mad state of mind.
And, since death is both the cause and the consequence of revenge, it is intimately tied to the theme of revenge and justice—Claudius's murder of King Hamlet initiates Hamlet's quest for revenge, and Claudius's death is the end of that quest.
In Hamlet, Shakespeare wrote madness because of devastating losses in the characters' lives, meaning that trauma, shock, or mischance might affect their sanity. In addition to this, he also wrote about the madness of excessive or unrequited love.
Hamlet's misogynistic behavior toward Gertrude and Ophelia can be seen as evidence that Hamlet really is going mad, because these scenes have little to do with his quest for justice yet seem to provoke his strongest feelings.
One example of dramatic irony in “Hamlet” is when the audience is aware that Hamlet is feigning madness while the other characters in the play believe that he is truly insane. This is shown in the scene where Hamlet feigns madness in front of Polonius and convinces him that he is indeed mad.
Grief-stricken and outraged, Hamlet bursts upon the company, declaring in agonized fury his own love for Ophelia. He leaps into the grave and fights with Laertes, saying that “forty thousand brothers / Could not, with all their quantity of love, / make up my sum” (V.i.254–256).
However, death appears as a motif in several different instances, primarily on the topic of suicide. Overcome with grief at his father's sudden death, Hamlet wishes he could die, saying, “O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!” (Shakespeare 15).
One of the elements representing dramatic irony is the rumor about the King's death caused by the snake's bite. Claudius spreads the lie that Hamlet's father died because of the snake's poison, and Denmark people believe him.
Ophelia is a character in Hamlet who is shown to be diagnosed with the mental illness “Schizophrenia”. Her diagnosis within the first acts of the play is weak, however, her mental illness reaches its peak in act 4, as a cluster of schizophrenia's symptoms are shown.
Some see Ophelia's death as an accident; others see it as a suicide resulting from the accumulation of a series of unfortunate events: her rejection by her boyfriend, her father's murder, and her possible pregnancy.
Ophelia's song is not an expression of one event or one feeling – it is the verbalization of grief over Polonius and Hamlet and a scrutiny of Gertrude's portrayal of love. In it, Ophelia laments about patriarchal society and the way she had been controlled and used.
Her character in the play represents femininity and fragility. She also seems to serves as a way for Hamlet to express the aggression, which he feels toward his mother. Ophelia is an important character in Hamlet because she shows the audience a frail heart.
She died because of her virtues, while others perished because of their faults. She did nothing wrong, but so many wrongs were dealt to her. Therefore, it was these factors, especially the loss of her father, which caused her to become mad and seen as a tragic figure.
Ophelia's final words are addressed to either Hamlet, or her father, or even herself and her lost innocence: “And will a not come again? / No, no, he is dead, / Go to thy death-bed, / He never will come again. / … / God a mercy on his soul. And of all Christian souls. God buy you.” Next, she drowns herself.
The flowers are a signal of Ophelia's descent into madness. They reveal her inner turmoil due to the grief and pain she feels. Since Hamlet killed her father, the feeling of betrayal has overcome her, and she never truly recovers. Thus, they also represent how Prince affected the people around him.
Against Horatio's advice, Hamlet agrees to fight, saying that “all's ill here about my heart,” but that one must be ready for death, since it will come no matter what one does (V. ii.
In a soliloquy—the only soliloquy in the play not spoken by Hamlet—Claudius admits murdering his brother, and he describes his guilt in the language of decay. His crime smells bad, like something going off. Throughout Hamlet, moral faults are described in the language of rot, decay and disease.
It is likely that Hamlet really was in love with Ophelia. Readers know Hamlet wrote love letters to Ophelia because she shows them to Polonius. In addition, Hamlet tells Ophelia, “I did love you once” (3.1. 117).
Why is Hamlet shocked by Ophelia's funeral in Act 5, Scene 1? He is astonished that the priest will not honor her with full rites. He is devastated by her death and stunned to see physical proof of his loss. He is enraged to see Claudius mourning when ultimately he caused her death.
Hamlet is feigning madness, while Claudius is simply an evil man driven by his desire for power. Scholars have been debating Hamlet's sanity for centuries. Those who believe Hamlet was truly mad cite his abrupt mood changes and erratic behaviour as proof that his father's death drove him insane.
Hamlet faked his madness at the beginning of the play for the sake of revenge for his father. However, later he was indeed behaving like a mad man.
He insists that she should seclude herself in a convent, away from men. Ophelia prays for Hamlet's sanity once more, but he harshly claims that women like her deceive men with makeup and cause them to sin. Hamlet blames their promiscuity for his madness and wishes for an end to all marriage.
Ophelia loves Hamlet and she know thinks that their relationship is over, this puts a lot of strain of her emotion state possible too much. Hamlet emotionally abuses Ophelia for his own personal gain, Ophelia ultimately blames herself and she descends into…show more content…