Characters in Hamlet and Frightening Ophelia

Ophelia the Victim

In William Shakespeare's Hamlet, the character of Ophelia is being portrayed quite like a victim. This simple, innocent young woman falls victim to many things. She is the victim of Hamlet's harassment, the victim of manipulation by many, the victim of her own flaws of being obedient, indecisive, and weak both mentally and eventually physically. Ophelia is unfortunately not very strong willed and is placed in the crossfire between many things and is unable to escape them. Gerald Chapman similarly agrees in the below quote taken from his book Essays on Shakespeare. The only character who is presented almost entirely as a victim is Ophelia, a victim of the King's fear and curiosity, her father's servility and fundamental indifference to her, Hamlet's misunderstanding of the situation and brutal treatment of her, and finally his fatal thrust through the arras in the closet scene (123).
Ophelia is the number one victim of Hamlet's harassment. As Harold Bloom says in his book Hamlet- Poem Unlimited, "What emerges clearly is that Hamlet is playacting and that Ophelia is the prime victim of his dissembling" (38). All though Hamlet may not mean all that he says, or perhaps he does, Ophelia most certainly believes his words and actions as truthful. He speaks harshly and insanely to her, and on occasion will physically grab at her. "He took me by the wrist, and held me hard" (2.1.84). Hamlet continuously uses Ophelia as a pawn in his game and eventually torments Ophelia first to insanity and then eventually to death. "…and Hamlet is monstrous to torment her into true madness" (Bloom 42). It is in Act 3, Scene 1, when Hamlet really lashes out on Ophelia. He questions her purity and accuses her as a sinner. He continues to ramble on and on about such matters, with each word he says frightening Ophelia more. If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry: be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny; get thee to a nunnery, go, farewell. Or if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool, for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them: to a nunnery go, and quickly too, farewell. (3.1.135-140).
By the end of this tirade Hamlet has almost completely broken down Ophelia, for she starts her downward spiral to death after this point. Ophelia is also victim to her vulnerability to be manipulated by others. Ophelia does not really have a mind of her own; she does what she told to do by others. Since this is the case it lets her be very opened to be used in whatever way people see fit. "Unlike Desdemona, Ophelia is not guilty of showing a dangerously strong mind of her own" (Pitt 52). Ophelia holds back her own opinions and desires in the hope to pleasure others, especially her father. She is manipulated by her father to be used as bait to draw out the true reasons of Hamlet's insanity. A perfect example of her father's manipulation is in Act 2 Scene 2. It is here that Polonius proposes to have Ophelia meet Hamlet in one of the main hallways that Hamlet often paces, and to have the King and himself (Polonius), listen into the conversation that the two will have. Of course by Polonius doing this he is feeding into Hamlet and helping him also manipulate Ophelia. She is manipulated by Hamlet because he uses her as the main target of his false insanity; as a result she helps to make everyone else think he is in fact truly mad. With Ophelia being manipulated by so many and being pulled in so many directions she is most surely to be confused and eventually go mad herself. Ophelia's indecisiveness has a lot to do with her being obedient to the requests by others. For example, at first "we know that Ophelia has first accepted and then rejected Hamlet's love addresses" (Muir 147). She loves the letters Hamlet is sending her and accepts them with opened arms, and then she denies them at the request of her father. It can also be assumed that at the start of Hamlet's supposed madness that Ophelia still wants to be with him. In any case he is her beloved Hamlet and perhaps she can help him. By the end, after Hamlet has killed her father it is quite clear she wants nothing to do with him, after all he has murdered someone she truly loved. "Ophelia's only prop after Act III is thus Hamlet, the man whose behaviour she now finds incomprehensible, who insults and mocks her, and who above all, has murdered her father" (Pitt 56). What goes on in the middle is a different story. She is torn between loving Hamlet and hating him. His madness and the way he treats her makes Ophelia want to hate him, but after all this is Hamlet, the man that seduced her and made her feel loved, so therefore she should love him. Ophelia is unable to make her own decisions concerning her feelings and actions. She would often be stuck in limbo if someone did not always jump in and interfere, thus pushing her in one direction or the other. Ophelia's obedience is another significant problem. Her strict obedience mostly to her father it what leads to her being manipulated so often. "It is true that she never challenges the wishes of her father, brother or Hamlet…" (Pitt 56-57). With her brother away, Polonius is the only family Ophelia has around. So it is quite natural that she would obey her father from the start, but perhaps she is even more willing to do so because Laertes is away and Polonius is the only one giving her so called advice. Besides, Ophelia believes her father to be a wise man, why shouldn't she listen to what he tells her to do, after all it is supposed to be in her best interest isn't it? However, you can even see Ophelia's obedience to her brother before he departs on his trip. Laertes gives Ophelia warning to stay away from Hamlet and protect herself and her virginity. And of course being the obedient person that she is, Ophelia agrees graciously. "I shall to effect of this good lesson keep as watchman to my heart" (1.3.45-46). One can also possibly say that Ophelia is weak in nature both mentally and at the end when she is unable to save herself from drowning, physically. She is unable to comprehend the game that Hamlet is playing and see how he is abusing her to get to the hearts and minds of others, especially Claudius'. She cannot see that she is being moved around like a piece on a game board by many people. Ophelia's inability to see how people are using her links in along with her being easily manipulated, indecisive, and extremely obedient, but it also leaves her mentally weak. She is capable of thought and intellect, but it seems that the thought process is missing, hence the reason she cannot clearly see through people schemes and uses of her. By the end of the story her madness draws her to an unintentional suicide. She falls in a stream and is too weak to save herself from drowning and thus dies. Not being able to save her own self from death shows how Ophelia is physically weak at the end. When down her weedy trophies and herself Fell in the weeping brook: her clothes spread wide, And mermaid-like awhile they bore her up, Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes, As one incapable of her own distress, Or like a creature native or indued Unto that element: but long it could not be Till that her garments, heavy with their drink, Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay To muddy death (4.7.174-183). Ophelia's ending is extremely tragic in that she is so far gone by madness she is unable to save herself of even try to save herself for that matter from death. Conversely, it is quite fitting that Ophelia's life should end this way do to all the underlying circumstances leading up to this event. Ophelia was in fact a victim, and in a way lead a tragic life up to her tragic death. She never had say in her own matters, and never did anything on her own. Ophelia was unfortunately the victim of everyone's greediness. Their greediness for revenge, their greediness for striving for greatness, and the list could go on. No one ever put Ophelia first; she was always last, the after thought. Ophelia is the sweet and innocent girl, the one who knows no better then what people tell her, she is the victim.

Works Consulted

Bamber, Linda. Comic Women, Tragic Men. California: Stanford University
Press, 1982.

Bloom, Harold. Hamlet: Poems Unlimited. New York: Penguin Putnam Inc., 2003.

Chapman, Gerald. Essays on Shakespeare. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965.

Muir, Kenneth. Interpretations of Shakespeare. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985.

Pitt, Angela. Shakespeare's Women. Newton Abbot, London: David and Charles, 1981.

Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Literature an Introduction to Reading and Writing. Ed. Edgar V. Roberts and Henry E. Jacobs. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2003. 915-1016