I think that Ophelia’s passivity stems from her environment and that the truly tragic thing about her is that she knows no other way to act. She has no support system that encourages her to act on her own and every man around her somehow feels the need to tell her how to behave. . She begins the play as a beautiful, optimistic, obedient, young woman and ends up broken, indifferent, deeply hurt, and mad. This character arc is made all the more tragic by the degree to which she is dependent upon people—specifically men. While the male characters of the play take revenge and plot against each other, Ophelia remains passive and unable to act upon her feelings. All of the influential people in Ophelia’s life are men: her father, Polonius, her brother,
