Does Hamlet Love Ophelia

While in the midst of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, one might wonder whether Hamlet is in love with Ophelia. Some might say that Hamlet is lovestruck and overcome with his feelings for Ophelia that he cannot function as a normal human. On the contrary, he is in no way lovestruck due to the fact that he can be rather indecisive with how he acts around her. Hamlet’s only motive in this play is to capture the person who murdered his father, not chase after the daughter of a nobleman. While marrying Ophelia, who is the daughter of a nobleman in favor of the king, might aid Hamlet’s succession should Claudius ever die, Hamlet does not show that he has any intentions in doing so. The definition of lovestruck according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary is …show more content…
In a desperate grasp at power, Polonius exploits his own daughter in an attempt to get the king to favor and trust him; therefore, Ophelia becomes a pawn in the elaborate battle of wits between Hamlet and Claudius and Polonius. When Hamlet enters the room proclaiming, “To be, or not to be: that is the question,” (Ham. 3.1.57) Ophelia is already there, yet there is no greeting in her direction when the soliloquy ends. Hamlet skips the greeting and starts addressing her directly. While this may go unnoticed to most, it must be noted that Hamlet’s intelligence and intuition throughout the play is rather sharp. During their interaction, Hamlet makes point to question Ophelia where her father is at when it is likely that he is well aware of the two men hiding behind the tapestries. This would explain why Hamlet begins to advise Ophelia to “[g]et thee to a nunnery” (Ham. 3.1.121) and insult her father by declaring “let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play no fool nowhere but in’s own house,” (Ham. 3.1.132-133). By saying these particular lines, Hamlet shows his awareness of Polonius’ presence, but also that he is using Ophelia as a pawn, just like Polonius, to get under his skin and make him reveal