The Manipulation Of Ophelia In Shakespeare's Hamlet

A rose between two thorns. Ophelia’s persona fades from a beautiful effervescent young girl in The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare, to a shell of a woman. Torn between trying to please her father and brother and trying to fix her relationship with her grief stricken boyfriend it is too much for her. After months of being manipulated by the court and the devastation she feels when her boyfriend kills her father, Ophelia can take no more and heads down a dark path of insanity to which there is no return. Though Ophelia should see nothing but innocence and love she sees only the poison circling around the court. When her father, Polonius finds out about Hamlet and quickly starts to pull Ophelia in two different directions. She is told that she may not spend anymore time with Hamlet, that “If with too credent ear you list hs songs / Or lose your heart or chaste treasure open” (1.3.33-34). Her family is worried that Ophelia is so innocent and naїve that she will lose her virginity to Hamlet out of wedlock and therefore lose her status a noblewoman. After hearing this Ophelia protests, “And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord / With almost all the holy vows in heaven” (1.3.124-124). She truly
All Ophelia knows is manipulation and orders, “No, my good lord, but as you did command” She submits to her father’s orders to please him leaving her happiness behind. At this point in the play Ophelia is so confused and can not even form her own thoughts, “I do not no my lord, what should I think” (1.3.114). She asks her father this because just asking what he wants is far easier than arguing. Constantly trying to please everyone around her, it begins to be too much, “I was the more deceived” (3.1.130). She says learning that her boyfriend whom she thought would marry her, no longer loves her she begins to walk down the path of darkness that soon turns into a