Ophelia Essay

In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Polonius says this line to Ophelia and it represents how women were depicted during this time period. The line starts out with Polonius calling Ophelia “Mary”. This could be a biblical allusion to the Virgin Mary, who is often depicted as pure and innocent. During this time, fathers, like Polonius, would expect their unmarried daughters to be virgins who was pure and innocent because their virginity determined their value. Polonius also calls her a “baby”, which…

guidelines of the ten commandments. In Hamlet one of the commandments, “honor your father and your mother.” Causes Ophelia and Hamlet to struggle throughout the play to honor their fathers by being truthful and obedient. Hamlet Sr’s ghost and Polonius take advantage of the insecurities of their children manipulating them as tools in their plots for vengeance and their own advancement. Ophelia and Hamlet’s downfall is due to their inexperience when it comes to making decisions and their naiveness…

Within the soliloquy, Ophelia is portrayed to be furious over Hamlet’s mad behavior since he pretends that he never loved her. In order to illustrate such a scenario, she begins her soliloquy, by reminiscing about the many nights they shared and uses the image of rosemary, in order to claim that they used to talk about marriage in plenty of occasions. This juxtaposes with Hamlet’s jests at her, where he claims that he despises marriage. Ophelia as well uses a series of dark imagery, ‘lunacy’,…

choice. In the book Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, a side character, Ophelia, has to make a choice between her love of Hamlet and her loyalty to her father and brother. In this quote we can see that Hamlet really did love Ophelia and never wanted anything bad to happen to her: "Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move, Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love." (2.2. 116-19). The choice that Ophelia made was to choose her brother and father who just want to protect…

In a world controlled by misogynistic men, two women, Gertrude and Ophelia find themselves in a plot written by a man, primarily about men, and their reactions reveal an interesting variety of potential interactions with patriarchy. In Hamlet, the reader encounters two main female characters. Though each try to gain agency, we find that Laertes and Polonius treat Ophelia as an inert instrument for their own ambition. Simultaneously, Hamlet and the Ghost try to manage Gertrude’s behavior by…

instructor, but according to Thomas Plummer, professor of Germanic and Slavic languages at Brigham Young University and author of the article “Diagnosing and Treating Ophelia Syndrome,” a great teacher will be well known and highly spoken of by the students. Plummer discusses the Ophelia Syndrome which is based off of the play Hamlet, where Ophelia is a girl who is told what to do, say, think, and feel by Polonius, who is a man after power and authority over others. Furthermore, James Paul Gee,…

show that hamlet truly loved Ophelia and that he ever stopped loving her Hamlets relationship with Ophelia is a complicated one with everything hamlet is going through and the various conflicts dealing with hamlet and his revenge for his father’s death. With the murder of his father’s death by the hands of his own uncle and the planning on killing the new king. It is difficult to show his love for Ophelia but none the less he did show it starting with when he told Ophelia “ I did love you”…

turn leads to death. Bluntly tragic, this line is fit for a Shakespearian play, and aptly applies to the fall of Ophelia in Hamlet: Prince of Denmark, by William Shakespeare. Though the main character is Hamlet himself, the maiden Ophelia provides an equally interesting figure. Amanda Mabillard explains in her article entitled “Ophelia”, “Of all the pivotal characters in Hamlet, Ophelia is the most static and one-dimensional. She has the potential to become a tragic heroine -- to overcome the…

My dear Ophelia was a violet living among the bed of thorns. An image of innocence and purity in among the disease, death and deceit that runs rampant throughout the court of Denmark. For her to have downed among the weeping willows, no to have downed herself, to escape the woes that littered her mortal coil. Without a man to guide her no wonder she drifted astray, condemned to hell for the abomination of her death. Hamlet without a doubt would have set he on this damned path. His fruitless…

The written texts, “Diagnosing and Treating the Ophelia Syndrome” and “The Allegory of the Cave,” express the abilities to gain knowledge and to think as an individual. “Diagnosing and Treating the Ophelia Syndrome” describes a psychological disorder that disables a person to create their own opinions. Being able to control your own ideas and opinions is important to form one’s own identity. “The Allegory of the Cave” uses symbolism to describe a theory about two different types of knowledge. In…