In the Shakespeare play Hamlet, many of the male characters treat the female characters poorly. But in all the play, no female character receives treatment as poorly as Ophelia. Ophelia is treated as a possession by her father Polonius as well as other characters in the play, her main love interest Hamlet uses her to aid in his revenge plans, and the current societal norms place restraints on Ophelia's freedoms and prohibit her ability to break free of the men surrounding her. But is all of this mistreatment just misguided love and support for Ophelia, or are the abusive male characters of the play acting intentionally? First, Ophelia is treated poorly by her father Polonius, and other powerful characters in the play. Polonius treats Ophelia …show more content…
At the beginning of the play, Hamlet is quite caring and affectionate towards Ophelia. But as the play progresses and Hamlet starts to become more delusional in his quest for revenge, he starts to manipulate Ophelia in order to use her as a pawn in his plan and disregards her well-being in the process. A good example of this is in act 3 scene 1 when Hamlet says, “I did love you once”. Hamlet originally starts out by saying that he used to love Ophelia. This action gives Ophelia, who does love Hamlet, hope that if he loved her in the past, he could love her again in the future. But suddenly only 4 lines later, Hamlet switches and says “You should not have believed me, for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it. I loved you not”. What Hamlet means when he says this is that Ophelia was a fool for thinking that Hamlet ever loved her. Hamlet knows that Ophelia loves him, so she is willing to try to win him over by whatever means possible. When Hamlet switches up what he is saying fast, he adds urgency to the situation because now Ophelia thinks that she is losing the chance to win Hamlet back. So, if she wants him to love her again, she must act fast and do whatever he says, thus allowing him to use her in his plot of revenge. Hamlet's mistreatment of Ophelia clearly shows how he is acting intentionally, he is intentionally messing with her in order to get her to help him. …show more content…
When Hamlet was written in the early 1600’s women didn’t have many rights, and while some did work, they were generally only seen as being good for working around the house and making babies. In Hamlet and many other Shakespeare plays this is very well represented by the male characters. A great example of this is when Hamlet says “To a nunnery, go, and quickly too. Farewell.”(3.1.6). A nunnery is a place where only nuns live, so when Hamlet tells her to go there, he wants her to go to a secluded place where she can't have any children. Hamlet disregards that she might not want to go away to a nunnery and become a nun because he objectifies her, he views her as a bad item that needs to go to the trash bin that is the nunnery. The idea of social norms influencing how characters interact with Ophelia is cemented when Hamlet later says “I have heard of your paintings too, well enough. God has given you one face and you make yourselves another. You jig and amble, and you lisp, you nickname God’s creatures and make your wantonness your ignorance.” (3.1.6). Here, Hamlet is making fun of Ophelia for doing girly things because he, like many other people, has no respect for women, he only sees Ophelia as an object for men to
Ophelia also puts up with inappropriate berating from Hamlet who constantly sexualizes and shames her. Because Ophelia is expected to act mannerly and polite, she is never allowed the opportunity to speak freely about her beliefs and
Hamlet's views on love could be ruined because of his mother's relationship with his father and how she got over him so quickly and married his uncle Claudius. Hamlet is also protecting Ophelia from getting hurt with his plans of revenge or protecting her from his uncle knowing he would use her as a way of hurting him. Hamlet shows his love for Ophelia in many different ways throughout the play. the first way Hamlet shows his love towards Ophelia is with
In William Shakespeare 's Hamlet the question is often posed as to whether or not Hamlet truly loved Ophelia. The question is open to interpretation yet, through Hamlet 's actions throughout the course of the play it is evident that he truly loved her. Hamlet is a famously self absorbed character although when he is around Ophelia his true feelings of love are portrayed. Although, many can argue that Hamlet never truly loved Ophelia there were many instances throughout the play where Hamlet is ardently in love with her. Hamlet 's true love for Ophelia is first displayed in act three when Hamlet blatantly says “I did love you” ( III.i.126).
Ophelia is like this because of Polonius’s manipulations. Polonius’ and Ophelia’s conversation in Act One demonstrates the results of his manipulations and shows Ophelia’s understanding of obedience to the audience. For whatever reason, Polonius does not want Ophelia to be in a relationship with Hamlet. So he stops their relationship by making Ophelia question herself and follows his orders. Polonius manipulates Ophelia by making her think that she invalidates her family’s honor, that she does not know anything, and that Hamlet is manipulating her among other things he says.
However, after examining the text, her madness appears to be real. Ophelia, the daughter of Polonius, is a naive girl who is eager to fall in love. Luckily, she has a prince willing to give her that “love” whose name is Hamlet. Ophelia is treated as an innocent girl even though she is a grown woman. An example of this is when her brother Laertes is lecturing her about Hamlet or when her dad said, “you speak like a green girl, unsifted in such perilous circumstances” (1.3 105-106).
The prevalence of the power dynamic between genders portrays society's treatment of women. Consequently, Ophelia's role highlights the distinction between the treatment of women and men in Hamlet. Turning the focus on the portrayal of Ophelia, she lives
Hamlet’s father died and this affected how he acts towards everyone, especially Ophelia. Throughout the play, Hamlet has shown that he has treated Ophelia poorly and is very harsh and dismissive with her, and his rejection of Ophelia’s love left her to be confused and upset. As said by Ophelia in ACT 1 SCENE 3 ‘He has made many tenders of affection to me lately’ (Sparknotes, 2008, pg.29). This leads Ophelia to be confused about his opinion on her as one moment Hamlet loves her the other he does not love her, as he says ‘ No not I, I never gave you anything’ (Sparknotes,2008, pg 83) After all of the things Hamlet has said Ophelia’s mental health starts to decline and Ophelia ends up in a bad headspace and ends up killing herself.
This provokes him to say that god gives women one face, but they use make up to paint on another one. This quote suggest that Hamlet sees woman as naive and gullible creatures, as he sees Ophelia as nothing but an object that is owned by her father, as she is helping him with all of his dirty work. Hamlet believes that woman cannot be trusted as they have are deceiving. He also sees Ophelia as a grown women who is unable to make her own decisions. Hamlet is utterly disgusted by how feeble Ophelia is as she was following her father's scheme.
Shakespearean Misogyny In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the two women in the play, Gertrude and Ophelia, are repeatedly manipulated and exploited by the men in their lives. They submit to male authority and oppressive societal customs because they have no other options. Gertrude and Ophelia are placed in this situation because of a male-dominated society that blames women for sexual immorality and corruption. Hamlet’s views about women are consistent with the commonly-held views of his peers.
Hamlet has loved Ophelia, but since the death of his father his mental state is decreasing, causing him to treat her worse. Laertes is telling Ophelia, “…his affection will fade after a minute. Not a second more” (41). As a brother thing to do, Laertes is looking out for Ophelia because he knows that Hamlet could break her heart and her reputation. Ophelia was returning Hamlets belongings and he tells her, “you shouldn’t have believed me…I didn’t love you” (143).
Did Hamlet Love Ophelia? In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, a young Prince seeks revenge against his murderous uncle, the King that killed his father. In the corner of his frenzied mind, a complicated Hamlet carries a love for the beautiful Ophelia. Hell bent on revenge, this complicated tale begs the question, is it all fair in love and war?
For the duration of the play, Ophelia was portrayed as a naïve and submissive woman. Her passivity and powerlessness reinforce the voicelessness of women during the Elizabethan era. For example, “I shall obey, my lord” (I.iii.134) shows that Ophelia concedes to her father’s will, even though she believes Hamlet’s love is genuine. She is willing and expected to obey her father despite the fact that she still loves Hamlet, which emphasizes her character’s submissive nature. Furthermore, in Act I Laertes warns Ophelia that it would be shameful of her to love Hamlet, and she responds with “I shall the effect of this good lesson keep as a watchman to my heart” (I.iii.45).
Saying this, Hamlet’s behavior towards Ophelia is crude, rough, and full of anger. Despite Hamlet’s harsh treatment towards Ophelia, he really did love her, but because she was not his main focus, the
Hamlet does not value Ophelia 's feelings he belittles her. In Hamlets defense this is the way he was brought up to treat women, during that time this was a common way to treat a women. Even though in today 's society it is not at all ok to treat women with such disrespect. He also likes for everything to go as planned and this may result in why he can not have a stable relationship with a woman. This also causes him to have many stumbling blocks in his life that causes some emotional pain
By attempting to leave Hamlet, Ophelia betrays him. This betrayal initially stirs confusion and later sparks anger when she tries to return the letters that Hamlet wrote to her. This anger was then projected into the hurtful insults that Hamlet used to harm Ophelia. This anger shows that Hamlet did, and still loves Ophelia. While Ophelia too has the same tender loving feeling for Hamlet, she is insanely submissive to her father (and other characters for that matter).