Hamlet and Ophelia foil each other as characters in a variety of ways; through the way each character chooses to be obedient towards their superiors and through their perceived madness. Hamlet’s madness foils Ophelia’s madness in that Hamlet’s psychosis was a tool used strategically to plan revenge without arousing the wrong type of suspicion. Ophelia’s madness was a madness provoked by the different superior figures in her life as well as her crippling dependency and the loss of the direction in her life. Both Hamlet’s madness and Ophelia’s madness contribute to the theme of what is real and what is not real within the play. Shakespeare uses these characters’ two delusional states to juxtapose each other and further reveal the complexities of their characters.…show more content… Again Hamlet’s thought process and actions are for the most part purposeful and tactical. Hamlet, unlike Ophelia, tests out everything. Even when the ghost of his father asks hamlet to avenge his murder, Hamlet still feels the need to test out the truth of what the ghost is saying. Also Hamlet is not immediately obedient toward the current king, in fact Hamlet, by planning to avenge his father, is betraying his king and therefore is acting out in disobedience. Ophelia on the other hand foils hamlet in that she is obedient to a fault. She obeys her father and obeys her brother so much so that she loses them both in the end and loses hamlet as well. Arguably Ophelia’s one and only act of disobedience is her suicide because it proves that she was never really pure like her father wanted her to be or as devout as he