Ophelia

Ophelia’s role Greek culture believed that women were formerly men in a previous life that had lived wicked lives and were turned into a women as punishment. Ophelia is commonly thought to be created to show Hamlet’s abhorrence of women in general just like the Greeks. Ophelia is more than just a minor character in Hamlet, rather, William Shakespeare uses Ophelia to show the more human sides of Gertrude, Laertes, and Hamlet, characters who otherwise are playing personal roles. Gertrude, Laertes, and Hamlet are painted as heartless and inherently selfish people for most of the play. The only time any sort of grief and thought is directed at someone besides themselves is when Ophelia is interacting with the character. Gertrude married her dead husband's brother scarcely a month after King Hamlet had been buried and made no attempt to find out if Claudius really killed King Hamlet even after Hamlet told her Claudius did. Gertrude has no concern for others until the mad Ophelia is appears and starts handing out flowers. Ophelia hands out rue and sweet violets, her way of comunicating to the queen that they are in the same boat. The queeen understands and first softens towards Ophelia in that moment. Gertrude again shows her bit of humanity when she tells Ophelia’s body:
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Sweets to the sweet, farewell! I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet’s wife; 255 I thought thy bride-bed to have decked, sweet maid, And not have strewn thy grave. (V, i, 254-7)
In these four lines Gertrude reveals that she actually can feel love and has thoughts and hopes for someone other than her. She had hoped for Hamlet and Ophelia to marry and she wanted Hamlet to be happy, something the reader would not have expected to see in a character like Gertrude. Women in Hamlet states:
“It is cynical to doubt the sincerity of her feelings for Ophelia. The two of them seem assigned to the role of safeguarding the feminine heritage of the play, and with the loss of her potential daughter-in-law, that heritage is sadly terminated.” Gertrude expresses her deep sadness and Laertes is the next to speak. Laertes has lost a father and now his sister, leaving him completely alone. Laertes response to the death of his father was hot anger and rash action which was quickly cooled when he saw Ophelia in her crazed state. He realized that he had not known his sister and that she felt deeper than he had ever imagined. Laertes still had hope though because her mind could be healed and he could still have a part of his family. Ophelia’s death completely breaks him as he is now without family and alone. The incomplete funeral rites for Ophelia caused by the suspicion of suicide drives Laertes to curse a priest, a man of God, by telling the priest that his sister will live in heaven while he, the priest, will howl in hell. Laertes is risking his soul’s resting place out of the love and desire that her name not be slandered. Telling a Strandberg3 priest he was going to hell could be one of the most reckless acts committed in this play. The church of England was at one of its moments of power, making certain leaders in the church as powerful or more powerful than the king, as they could tell the people a person they didn’t like needed to be destroyed because they had blasphemed or some such sin. This act above all his other acts proves his love and demonstrates a side of his character that had not been seen until that point. Laertes had been in France partying, getting drunk, and sleeping around not even caring that he had left his sister alone with their manipulative and domineering father Polonius. Laertes was wholly absorbed with himself and how he felt even when Polonius died. Ophelia had to practically hit him on the head with her flowers in order for Laertes to realize that he was not the only one who had lost a father and that Ophelia was grieving as much, if not more than him. It takes until Ophelia’s funeral for Laertes to show remorse and sorrow, a part of his character only revealed during the funeral and never shown again as it is replaced with reckless anger. Hamlet seems prone to a moody and sullen nature throughout the play, though he is forced to adopt a mad persona as a way of achieving vengeance and justice. Ophelia tells us that Hamlet is in love with her and Polonius reads Hamlets letter to Ophelia to Claudius and Gertrude but there is no proof if Hamlet truly loves her as the only times the audience witnesses them interacting is when they are in the presence of others and Hamlet is forced to treat Ophelia roughly to keep up his pretense of being mad. Hamlet reveals his true feelings towards Ophelia when he also attends Ophelia’s funeral, although his attendance was due to chance and secrecy because he was sneaking back into Denmark. When
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Hamlet hears Laertes telling the priest he’s going to burn, and Laertes cursing Hamlet’s name, and proclaiming how much he loved Ophelia something within Hamlet breaks and at that point he truly was mad because of grief. Hamlet insults and attacks Laertes in part for cursing him but more for his lamenting of Ophelia because he left Ophelia with Polonius to be used as a rung in Polonius’s social ladder and because Laertes never really knew or respected Ophelia. Unlike Hamlet, who loved her and cherished her as is shown when he describes his love for Ophelia as greater than the sum of forty thousand brothers and proceeds to top all of Laertes declarations of monuments to build for Ophelia. This dialogue is perhaps the most impassioned piece that Hamlet utters. Hamlet reveals a side previously unseen in this scene as he shows how deeply in love with Ophelia he is and that even the threat of death cannot stop himself from revealing himself to declare his deep and utter love for her. Shakespeare could not have created such compelling and well rounded characters without the help of Ophelia. Ophelia brings out the sides in Gertrude, Laertes, and Hamlet that are not seen in any other scene so clearly. She gives the audience a way to empathize with the characters feelings as they have all seen how Ophelia is a victim and all feel sorrow for her death. Ophelia is the bridge between the audience and the actors. Ophelia is not a minor character, as she illuminates and binds these fated victims for a few minutes with the singular feeling of sorrow and love for the poor Ophelia.