What Is Ophelia's Descent Into Madness In Hamlet
Monica Alicea
Mrs.Thompson
English IV Honors, 5th
27 February 2015
Good girl gone mad:
As we all know; there is only so much a person can take, only so many straws until you reach the last one, and only so much betrayal and heartbreak one woman can withstand until she ultimately loses her sanity. This is no different in William Shakespeare 's notorious tragedy; Hamlet. The play write touches on many themes that stem from madness and psychology. The dark story is filled with death, and not just the death of the character 's physical bodies, but the death of their sanity as well. Ophelia, Hamlet 's love interest and Polonius ' daughter, is the epitome of a character with this grievous fate. Throughout the story you can see how her mistreatment causes her to slowly lose touch with the passionate and beautiful woman she starts out as. Ophelia’s descent into madness is the ultimate tragedy of Hamlet when considering her family’s distrust of her worth and virtue, and her lover’s betrayal and cruelty. The first of the many unfortunate series of events which resulted …show more content…
In Act 3 Sc.1 Hamlet begins with an extremely malicious sarcasm towards her. He thanks her for her initial pleasantries (“I humbly thank you, well, well, well,”). He then readily denies that he ever truly cared for her. Since she wasn 't expecting this from her dear lover, she is left in shock when her once charming prince demands “Get thee to a nunnery” (168). The connotations of the meaning of “nunnery” is enough in and of itself to be a cruel wake up call to her. Ophelia 's sanity begins to unravel itself even more at this point. Hamlet 's melancholy grants him the flexibility to convey manic-depressive measures, while Ophelia 's is much more painful and
Mrs.Thompson
English IV Honors, 5th
27 February 2015
Good girl gone mad:
As we all know; there is only so much a person can take, only so many straws until you reach the last one, and only so much betrayal and heartbreak one woman can withstand until she ultimately loses her sanity. This is no different in William Shakespeare 's notorious tragedy; Hamlet. The play write touches on many themes that stem from madness and psychology. The dark story is filled with death, and not just the death of the character 's physical bodies, but the death of their sanity as well. Ophelia, Hamlet 's love interest and Polonius ' daughter, is the epitome of a character with this grievous fate. Throughout the story you can see how her mistreatment causes her to slowly lose touch with the passionate and beautiful woman she starts out as. Ophelia’s descent into madness is the ultimate tragedy of Hamlet when considering her family’s distrust of her worth and virtue, and her lover’s betrayal and cruelty. The first of the many unfortunate series of events which resulted …show more content…
In Act 3 Sc.1 Hamlet begins with an extremely malicious sarcasm towards her. He thanks her for her initial pleasantries (“I humbly thank you, well, well, well,”). He then readily denies that he ever truly cared for her. Since she wasn 't expecting this from her dear lover, she is left in shock when her once charming prince demands “Get thee to a nunnery” (168). The connotations of the meaning of “nunnery” is enough in and of itself to be a cruel wake up call to her. Ophelia 's sanity begins to unravel itself even more at this point. Hamlet 's melancholy grants him the flexibility to convey manic-depressive measures, while Ophelia 's is much more painful and