Ophelia's Madness

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Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a tragic tale of vengeance, grief, and madness. The main character, Hamlet, is devastated by the death of his father and to his dismay; his mother instantaneously marries Claudius, his late father’s brother. This enrages the prince, and he makes sly remarks about the situation throughout the play. One night, an old friend, Horatio, bids Hamlet to come with him to see the ghost. Hamlet agrees and discovers that the ghost is the ghost of his late father, and his father tells him the story of his demise. Claudius murdered Hamlet’s father in cold blood, and when Hamlet finds out, he devises a plan to kill Claudius in an elaborate revenge plot. He follows through with this plan by feigning madness. Hamlet’s false insanity…show more content…
She walks into the castle prancing and dancing around, giving the various characters of the play different flowers, each symbolizing a different thing. For example, “There’s a rue for you, and here’s some for me” (Act IV, Scene V). Rues symbolize adultery, so she is insulting the queen’s jump into marriage with Claudius, but is also insulting her own promiscuity with Hamlet. Although, yes, Ophelia has gone mad, she is just a victim of circumstance. She is as mad as Hamlet has made her. Not only has he disturbed her virginity, he has also killed her father, leaving only her brother to care for her, and Laertes is rarely there. Ophelia then, unfortunately, is suspected of taking her own life. “Is she to be buried in Christian burial when she willfully seeks her own salvation?” (Act V, Scene I) the gravediggers ask. As a Christian, the biggest sin one could commit is taking God’s actions into their own hands. If Ophelia really did kill herself, she was not to be given a Christian burial because she would not be able to descend into heaven. Hamlet successfully drove Ophelia to insanity, and if she did take her life, she aggrieved her afterlife, and she is doomed to
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