Ophelia's Reclamation Of Free Will Through Death Analysis

Ophelia’s Reclamation of Free Will Through Death
While it is evident that Ophelia’s suicide is caused by her grief over her father’s and her brother’s death, and the epiphanies that she has to come to terms with due to their deaths, her madness is also caused by her unsuccessful relationship with Hamlet. Ophelia’s innocence, sweetness, and naïveté do factor in her committing suicide, but it is the realization that the men in her life all have dominance over her that leads Ophelia to her death. The death of her brother and father allows Ophelia to realize just how much say they had over her actions. After the death of these two men, Hamlet’s demeaning comments about her force her to transform into a cynical and “mad” character. Ophelia’s character
This acts as an explanation as to why Ophelia’s view on life turns cynical. In the process of trying to cure Hamlet she is instead negatively affected by him. Furthermore, even Hamlet starts to notice that he is harming Ophelia. When he admits to never loving her, he subtly tries to warn her of the corruption in the world. He tells her “You should not have believed me for virtue cannot / so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it. I love / you not” (iii.i.118-120). Hamlet tells Ophelia that she should not have believed him when he told her he loved her because he and everyone else, are rotten on the inside regardless of how “virtuous” and “good” one may portray themselves to be. Hamlet admits that he is not good and acknowledges the fact that by him having some kind of relationship with Ophelia he is corrupting her. As if he knows the damage that he was causing to Ophelia’s innocence, Hamlet tells Ophelia to “Go thy ways to a nunnery” (iii.i.130). Hamlet is implying that he has damaged Ophelia and in order to redeem herself she should go to a sacred and holy place. By doing so, Ophelia would not run the risk of once again becoming corrupted by a man. However, the vulgar manner in which he tells her this seems as if he is mocking the very concept of hope for Ophelia. Hamlet’s constant criticism is troubling to Ophelia and is one of the reasons why she chooses to kill herself. Right after
In Ophelia’s song the female is misled to believe that her lover will marry her. However, her lover refuses to marry her because she is no longer a virgin. At the beginning of the song, Ophelia sings that men “are to blame” for corrupting women and stealing their prized possession. She sings this song to challenge Hamlet’s misconception that women are deceiving and like to entrap men. Ophelia shows that it is men who trick women into giving up their virginity for the sake of love. Women are deceived by men for their sexual pleasure, however throughout the play Hamlet nags “for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness” (iii.i.114-116). Additionally, Ophelia sings this song to show her sympathy towards women who have encountered such situations and to show that she herself has received an empty promise of love from Hamlet. In the love letters that Hamlet wrote her, he told her he loved her, but when she confronted him he claims he never loved her and that he never wrote her any of those letters. Ophelia becomes exhausted of Hamlet’s hypocrisy and his false idea of love. She learns the hard way that he never loved her to begin with, and that women can very easily fall victim to the deceit of men. She comes to the realization that the love she thought was real and genuine was merely lust on his behalf. This