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Teresa Lihach
English 151W
Professor Jacobs
15 March 2011
To be or not to be: Hamlet and Ophelia
The Tragedy of Hamlet: Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare is an intense
play with many themes and complex relationships between the characters. I found the
relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia to be particularly interesting because while he
loves her, he must set this love aside to carry out another duty. In the beginning of the play,
Hamlet pledged to avenge his father’s murder after speaking to the ghost of the dead King
Hamlet. The protagonist concocts a plan to take on a new personality that destructively
manipulates the court of Denmark by feigning madness so that he may kill his uncle
without suspicion. Thus, Hamlet and Ophelia’s romance is doomed, as the consequences of
the story and characters constantly threaten the chance for their love to survive. Some
critics such as Carroll Camden in “On Ophelia’s Madness” argue that Hamlet and Ophelia’s
love is doomed mainly because of Ophelia’s madness due to Hamlet’s cruel treatment of her
during his feign of madness, while other critics such as John Draper in “The Hamlet of
Shakespeare’s audience” argue that it is due to Hamlet’s murder of Polonius which drives
Ophelia mad and dooms their relationship. While Hamlet has surely been cruel to Ophelia
and murdered her father, neither of these are the sole causes of the destruction of their
relationship, but rather it is a combination of both. In my opinion, the ghost’s request that
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Hamlet avenge his murder causes a series of events that leads to the destruction of Hamlet
and Ophelia’s love and among those events are Hamlet’s cruel treatment of Ophelia,
Polonius’ forbiddance of Ophelia to Hamlet and Polonius’ murder.
The ghost’s request of Hamlet which causes him to feign madness leads to the
destruction of Hamlet and Ophelia’s love because although Hamlet deeply loves Ophelia,
she must be among the characters that believe Hamlet is crazy in order for his plan to
work. Aware that the court of Denmark is watching most of their encounters, Hamlet
offends Ophelia in public. As he insults and demeans her as a part of his ploy, their
romance becomes strained. Hamlet tells Ophelia “Get thee to a nunnery” with the intention
of seeming mad, but this undoubtedly strains their relationship (III. 1. 121). He tells her
that he never loved her in an attempt to upset by her and make it seem as if she caused his
madness by denying him access to her (III.1.118-119). Thus, Hamlet sacrifices his love for
Ophelia to carry out his vengeance plot. In an article entitled “Hamlet’s Precarious
Emotional Balance” by Theodore Lidz, the author elaborates on this cruel and irrational
behavior on behalf of Hamlet towards Ophelia:
Even though we know that Hamlet has planned to feign insanity, it seems
strange that he does so by entering Ophelia’s rooms in so disheveled a
condition or that he would befoul his stockings to carry out the pretense.
Perhaps he seeks to hide the meaning of his embittered and melancholic
behavior under the guise of being depressed over Ophelia’s withdrawal of
her affection, but it seems a cruel and deceitful way to threat his beloved.
(Lidz 2)
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Camden furthers this argument that Hamlet’s cruel treatment of Ophelia dooms their
relationship because it is a contributing factor to her cause of madness. Although Polonius’
death at the hand of her suitor is a contributing factor to Ophelia’s insanity, Camden
theorizes that Hamlet’s treatment of her as well as Ophelia’s guilt for believing she caused
Hamlet’s madness was the larger cause of her mental state. This supports Ophelia’s
madness as a contributing factor to the demise of her and Hamlet’s relationship.
Ophelia comments on the sharpness of his repartee, only to receive the
reply, “It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge". Although Hamlet's
language may have been calculated to convince Claudius that he is mad for
love, it certainly was the sort to disturb even more the delicate balance of
the susceptible girl who saw herself to blame. (Camden 250)
I believe Camden correctly asserts that Hamlet’s bawdy language towards Ophelia upsets
her and further confuses her, causing her melancholic state and furthering the destruction
of their relationship. If it were not for the ghost, Hamlet would not need to do this and
therefore the ghost’s request of vengeance is the cause of Hamlet and Ophelia’s doomed
relationship by initiating his cruel treatment of her to help carry out his plan. Hamlet
insults Ophelia, but in hindsight he loves her. The Prince declares his love for Ophelia early
on in the play as well as at the very end of the play. Hamlet sends Ophelia love letters and
tells her that he loves her best. Upon learning of Ophelia’s death at the end of the play,
Hamlet claims that his love for Ophelia was so deep and endless, that “…Forty thousand
brothers Could not, with all their quantity of love, Make up my sum” (V.1.254-256).
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In addition to the ghost’s request of Hamlet causing the demise of his romance with
Ophelia because of his treatment of her, Hamlet’s feign of madness destroys his
relationship with Ophelia because it leads to Polonius forbidding his daughter to be with
the Prince. Although he had previously told her to stay away from Hamlet, his following
actions reinforce Polonius’ opinions of the Prince. As previously mentioned, this
predetermined act was necessary for Hamlet to seem mad. Soon after Hamlet has an
encounter with the ghost of his father, he visits Ophelia while she is sewing in her closet
and frightens her with his mad act. Hamlet first visits Ophelia because he believes that she
will help spread the gossip of his insanity to the court of Denmark; and she being the
source of this information will seem the cause of his madness. Ophelia urgently informs
her father of Hamlet’s lunacy in Act 2, Scene I:
Lord Hamlet, with is doublet all unbraced,
No hat upon his head, his stockings fouled,
Ungartered, and down-gyved to his ankle,
Pale as his shirt; his knees knocking each other;
And with a look so piteous in purport
As if he has been loosed out of hell
To speak of horrors – he comes before me.
(II.1.78-84)
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Upon hearing this distraught appearance of Hamlet from his daughter, Polonius asks
Ophelia if this madness is because of her love (II.1.84). The fair Ophelia continues to
describe Hamlet’s actions after telling her father she does not know if her love is the cause
of this madness. Hamlet’s strange behavior leads Polonius to believe that Ophelia’s action
under his request to deny her access to Hamlet has made Hamlet mad:
This is the very ecstasy of love;
Whose violent property fordoes itself
And leads the will to desperate undertakings,
As oft as any passion under heaven
That does afflict our natures.
(II.1.102-106)
Due to Hamlet’s necessity to feign madness, it makes it all the more difficult for he and
Ophelia’s love to progress because his appearance towards her in the first scene of the
second act not only make Ophelia frightened, but prove to Polonius that he should not be
with Ophelia and thus Polonius forbids it. This is further supported in “Hamlet to Ophelia”
by Harold C. Goddard, in which the author attempts to explain Ophelia’s obedience to
Polonius and why this destructs Hamlet and Ophelia’s romance:
Polonius is a domestic tyrant. Ophelia is a timid, docile and obedient child.
That she should run to him when frightened, as when she tells of Hamlet’s
visit to her closet; or obey a direct command, as when she denies her lover
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access to her and repels his letters; or give up a letter if her father knew
definitely of its existence or caught her with it in her hand: any of these
things is quite in character. (Goddard 410)
As Goddard explains, it is Ophelia’s nature to obey her father and when he tells her to deny
Hamlet access to her; she obeys; therefore adding to the reasons for the damnation of
Hamlet and Ophelia’s romance.
The accidental death of Polonius by the hands of Hamlet is the final event
that was a consequence of the ghost’s appearance to Hamlet that doomed Ophelia and the
Prince’s relationship. Without the beckoning of the ghost of Hamlet’s father, Polonius
would not have been murdered at the hands of the Prince and without the murder of her
father, Ophelia would not have gone mad which was the last straw in the strained
relationship between her and Hamlet. In “On Ophelia’s Madness”, in analyzing the
character of Ophelia and the nature of her madness, Camden argues that Ophelia has been
driven mad by arguably two acts: Hamlet’s madness and the murder of her father by the
Prince (Camden 247). The murder of her father by her suitor clearly makes Ophelia upset
and devastates her and Hamlet’s love:
Ophelia now indeed speaks of her father, saying that she cannot help
weeping "to think they should lay him i' the cold ground". After she makes
her exit, the King repeats his first diagnosis, saying, "this is the poison of deep
grief; it springs all from her father's death"'. (Camden 252)
Furthermore, Lidz states that the murder of Polonius is the turning point of the play
because in addition to the numerous affects it has on the relationships with the other
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characters such as confirming Hamlet as a legitimate threat to Claudius, it transforms
Ophelia’s suitor into her father’s murderer which obliges Ophelia to hate where she had
loved (Hill 370). Soon after Polonius is killed and is denied a proper burial, because Hamlet
has hidden the body, Ophelia goes mad. Shakespeare leads us to draw the conclusion that
Hamlet’s accidental slaying of her father (which was caused by his madness) directly
caused her madness. Ophelia recites hymns and songs, talking of flowers and daisies to the
King and Gertrude. Soon after, while sitting on a swing by the water, Ophelia drowns.
In Conclusion, although he deeply loves Ophelia, Hamlet’s undying loyalty to the
ghost of his father prevents him from being with her because in order to avenge his father’s
death, he must act insane and Ophelia must believe it. In his ploy to make those around
him believe that he was mad, Hamlet sacrificed his love for Ophelia, hurting her when he
did not want to hurt her. Hamlet's true feelings are revealed through his letters and his
argument with Laertes after Ophelia's death. Although Camden and Draper are correct in
their conclusions that Polonius’ murder and Hamlet’s cruel treatment of Ophelia cause her
madness and thus destruct Ophelia and Hamlet’s relationship, neither of the events is the
main cause of their failed relationship. It is evident that both authors are correct and
combined with Polonius’ request to keep Hamlet away from his daughter are the reasons
for their doomed relationship. Although these actions that led to Hamlet and Ophelia’s
ruined love were triggered by a greater cause which was the ghost’s request that Hamlet
avenge his murder because it enabled the all of the events that caused the demise of their
relationship.
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Works Cited
Camden, Carroll. “On Ophelia's Madness.” Shakespeare Quarterly, 15.2 (Spring, 1964): 247255. JSTOR. Web 5 Mar 11.
Goddard, Harold C. “Hamlet to Ophelia.” College English, 16.7 (Apr 1955): 403-415. JSTOR.
Web 4 Mar 2011.
Hill, W. Speed. “A Psychiatrist Examines Hamlet.” Shakespeare Quarterly, 28.3 (Summer,
1977): 369-371. JSTOR. Web 5 Mar 11.
Lidz, Theordore. “Hamlet’s Precarious Emotional Balance.”