From the death of Ophelia, we naturally pass to the scene of her burial. Without interrupting the action of the drama, her funeral serves as a brief respite for the audience before the breathless on-rush of the fast approaching and final catastrophe.
Ophelia's death symbolizes a life spent passively tolerating Hamlet's manipulations and the restrictions imposed by those around her, while struggling to maintain the last shred of her dignity.
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).
There is little question from the Priest/Doctor's speech that Ophelia has received special considerations that stretch the rules that govern church burials. The common understanding is that either the coroner or the coroner's inquest has come up with a lenient judgment.
He notes that the funeral is not a full Christian rite but that the body is being interred in sacred ground. Laertes argues with the priest over Ophelia's burial. Claudius' command at inquest, he argues, should grant her all the rites of a Christian burial.
What does Hamlet insist at Ophelia's funeral? His grief for Ophelia is forty thousand times that of Laertes' grief. How does Laertes die? He is cut by his own poisoned blade.
From the death of Ophelia, we naturally pass to the scene of her burial. Without interrupting the action of the drama, her funeral serves as a brief respite for the audience before the breathless on-rush of the fast approaching and final catastrophe.
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.
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.
Q. Q. What happens at Ophelia's funeral? Laertes challenges Hamlet to a fencing duel over the grave.
The significance of Ophelia's madness is to signify her losing two of the most important men in her life, Polonius and Hamlet.
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.
Their particular form of madness was more related to hysteria -- an affliction which was considered to be particularly feminine. Clinically speaking, Ophelia's behavior and appearance are characteristic of the malady the Elizabethans would have diagnosed as female love-melancholy, or erotomania.
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.
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.
Ophelia is not only subject to the torture of others using her for their intentions but she is also susceptible to abuse from Hamlet. Both her father and her brother believe that Hamlet is using her to achieve his own personal goals.
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.
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.
The gravedigger scene is important in Hamlet because it both represents comic-relief and tragedy. It is in this scene that Hamlet accepts his mortality and fate. Q: What is the significance of Ophelia's death? Ophelia's death is important because it is the final loss of a loved one that Hamlet sees.
Laertes will duel with hamlet in a "friendly" fencing match & get an unbated sword & poison it as well as his drink. What dramatic purpose is served by having the news of Ophelia's death come when it does? Makes Laertes want to kill hamlet more.
Hamlet realizes Ophelia is the one being buried and he jumps out from hiding and declares.. his love for Ophelia. he would eat a crocodile for her, he would be buried alive with her.
Hamlet asks whose grave they are digging. One of the gravediggers, who does not realize that it is Hamlet he is speaking to, answers him in riddles and paradoxes, but eventually admits that it ''was a woman, but, rest her soul, she is dead.
The officiating priest is more emphatic (epigraph) in his objections and denies Ophelia full religious burial rites. Maiden flowers can be scattered on her grave and church bells rung, but no other church-sanctioned activities may be performed. For Hamlet and Laertes, her brother, these are “maimed” (incomplete) rites.
Hamlet is cruel to Ophelia because he has transferred his anger at Gertrude's marriage to Claudius onto Ophelia. In fact, Hamlet's words suggest that he transfers his rage and disgust for his mother onto all women. He says to Ophelia, “God has given you one face and you make yourselves another.
Introduction: The association between memory loss and Hodgkin's lymphoma has been given the eponym of Ophelia syndrome, in memory of Shakespeare's character in The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.