Ophelia's tragic flaw is the loyalty she affords those she loves. This loyalty renders her incapable of emotionally handling his mistreatment, in addition to the demands of her father and brother.
Tragic flaw: Ophelia has no control over her mind, body, and relationships, she doesn't think for herself.
Ophelia's lack of autonomy stems from her treatment by her father and brother. Laertes offers Ophelia advice, though it has a subtext of cruelty to it and implies her ignorance rather than innocence. If her “chaste treasure” were to “open” she would lose what power she had in respectable society.
For the Elizabethans, Hamlet was the prototype of melancholy male madness, associated with intellectual and imaginative genius; but Ophelia's affliction was erotomania, or love-madness.
The combination of her former lover's cruelty and her father's death sends Ophelia into a fit of grief. In Act Four she spirals into madness and dies under ambiguous circumstances. Ophelia's tragedy lies in the way she loses her innocence through no fault of her own.
Ophelia's madness stems from her lack of identity and her feelings of helplessness regarding her own life. While the death of Hamlet's father made him angry enough to want revenge, Ophelia internalized the death of her father as a loss of personal identity.
Unlike the other characters in the play, Ophelia died from loving too much, being too innocent, and too pure. 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.
However, the explicit sexual references in Ophelia's songs perhaps account for her obsession with the now absent Hamlet, as in “promising his love” to her earlier in the play and then being scorned, she is doubly heartbroken alongside the death of her father.
Hamlet seems to know that Ophelia is helping her dad spy on him, and he accuses her (and all women) of being a "breeder of sinners" and orders Ophelia to a "nunnery" (3.1.
Such an unforgiving attitude towards suicide might be the reason why Shakespeare never confirms exactly how Ophelia dies. We know that she drowns, but since her death takes place offstage it is unclear whether her final actions are accidental or intentional.
Ophelia goes mad because her father, Polonius, whom she deeply loved, has been killed by Hamlet. In addition, Hamlet, whom she also loved, has cruelly rejected her.
The significance of Ophelia's madness is to signify her losing two of the most important men in her life, Polonius and Hamlet.
Her frailty and innocence work against her as she cannot cope with the unfolding of one traumatic event after another. Ophelia's darling Hamlet causes all her emotional pain throughout the play, and when his hate is responsible for her father's death, she has endured all that she is capable of enduring and goes insane.
Q: What does Ophelia represent in Hamlet? Ophelia represents femininity in Hamlet. Hamlet acts out his aggression toward his mother on her, which finally leads to her madness.
On top of this, Hamlet, who Ophelia loved, was also the perpetrator of her father's death. These events eventually lead for Ophelia to commit suicide, who Hamlet grieves over and feels guilty, regretting what he said of not loving her and killing her father.
How is Ophelia's death foreshadowed? Ophelia's death is foreshadowed in Act 2, Scene 1 of Hamlet. She is talking to her father about Hamlet's madness. Her madness, which leads to her death, is predicted in this scene.
In the context of the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare many possibilities can be identified that pertain to Ophelia's sudden death. Ophelia's death was triggered by her mental breakdown due to the loss of her father.
Her death is "doubtful" (V. L227) because she is as bereft of motivation as she dies as is the infant being baptized. Whatever "intention" leads to her drowning, the church seems to rule that she has "Too much of water" (IV. vii.
Her heart has convinced her that Hamlet loved her, though he swears he never did. To her father and brother, Ophelia is the eternal virgin, the vessel of morality whose purpose is to be a dutiful wife and steadfast mother. To Hamlet, she is a sexual object, a corrupt and deceitful lover.
Bidding his sister, Ophelia, farewell, he cautions her against falling in love with Hamlet, who is, according to Laertes, too far above her by birth to be able to love her honorably. Since Hamlet is responsible not only for his own feelings but for his position in the state, it may be impossible for him to marry her.
Laertes must have been clued in to Ophelia's pregnancy. Polonius inadvertently admits to such a claim. Polonius's knowledge is revealed when Hamlet discloses that he knows Ophelia, his lady love might be pregnant. Check out the words that Hamlet uses when he confronts Polonious.
In the painting, Ophelia is surrounded by colorful flowers and plants, symbols of life and continuity, and her body seems to be one with the water; this signifies the concept of returning to the earth when one dies.
SARAH: Ophelia made a wreath of flowers and attempted to hang it on the branches of the willow. While doing so, she slipped and fell into the brook.
As he has lost his faith in his beloved mother, he loses his faith in Ophelia because she is the other woman he loves.
Suddenly, the funeral procession for Ophelia enters the churchyard, including Claudius, Gertrude, Laertes, and many mourning courtiers. Hamlet, wondering who has died, notices that the funeral rites seem “maimed,” indicating that the dead man or woman took his or her own life (V.i.242).