Ophelia: Is She Crazy or Not?

In the story “Hamlet” by William Shakespeare the character of Ophelia is quite a challenge to understand. Ophelia is Hamlets love interest, whom many thought was mad or psychologically disturbed from the beginning of the story. That may have been true, but it was not necessarily the whole truth. Ophelia could have been mad or just been madly in love. She also could have been putting on a cloak of madness to hide the fact that she was in on Hamlets plan to expose the King for killing his father.

Ophelia was not as crazy or weak as others perceived her; she was actually quite clever and in on the whole plan with Hamlet and didn’t really go crazy until after he got banished. Ophelia’s relationship with Hamlet was one that was very hard to understand. She was in love with him and that complicated things. The character of Ophelia was the daughter of the King’s Advisor. She was not royalty or even remotely from a royal lineage.

Hamlet, on the other hand, was a prince. He was the prince in line for the throne.

Ophelia was in love with Hamlet and the only chance she had was to conspire with him and earn his trust. Hamlet discovered that his father had been murdered by his uncle. His uncle, Claudius, then became the king. Hamlet pretended to be crazy in order to expose his uncle. Ophelia found out that this was what was happening and went along with it in order to convince her father, Polonius, that Claudius had murdered the king.

Polonius was, after all, the king’s advisor. Speaking of Hamlet, she says in Act 2 Scene 1, “He took me by the wrist, and held me hard” (1546).

She knew, by telling her father that Hamlet had gone crazy and grabbed her, that he would relay it to the queen and her new king. In Act 2 Scene 2, Hamlet broke the news to Polonius that Ophelia was pregnant. He used words like conception, breed and pregnant. In Act 3 Hamlet confronted Ophelia and said, “Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldn’t thou be a breeder of sinners? ” (1564). In Shakespeare’s time a nunnery could mean an actual convent or a whorehouse. He was telling her that she had two choices. Her first option was to go to the church to have the child so it would be pure and protected.

This option also assured that Ophelia would be safe from retribution. The other option she had was to go to a whorehouse because she was, after all, having a child out of wedlock. According to Shakespeare Quarterly, Ophelia feels that Hamlet has deserted her, “Perhaps, then, in her mind it is Hamlet who is ‘dead and gone’ since he is dead and gone for her. ” This leads the reader to believe that perhaps she is truly mad and not in league with him. When Hamlet was exiled, Ophelia realized that Hamlet wasn’t going to be able to stand by her at that point.

She thought she was going to have to do something to help herself since he wasn’t going to be there to help her. Ophelia had a mind of her own. She decided she was going to handle things her way. She went to the river to pick herbs and flowers, “There’s fennel for you, and columbines: there’s rue for you; and here’s some for me: we may call it herb-grace o’ Sundays” (1594). These were not just any herbs or flowers. These herbs were known to be effective as abortion causing agents. Ophelia knew she could not have this baby without Hamlet so she devised a plan to remove the pregnancy and save herself.

Ophelia did manage to kill her unborn child but not in the manner she thought. Ophelia died in the process; she drowned when she was picking the herbs and flowers that she knew would kill her baby. Many people thought that Ophelia was a weak character because she listened to her elders like a lady should, but she was really not weak. She stood her ground to her brother, Laertes, when he gave her a speech saying that she should not see Hamlet anymore. In Act 1 Scene 3, Ophelia said to Laertes, Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven; Whilst . . . Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads, And recks not his own rede. (1534) She told her brother not to be a hypocrite. She stood her ground and to a man, which at the time was unheard of for a young lady. Ophelia was anything but weak. She was strong willed and smart; strong willed enough to try and take the life of her unborn child and smart enough to know how. Ophelia was not crazy or weak. On the contrary she was strong and smart enough to conspire with a prince and plan the demise of her unborn child.

The fact that she was unsuccessful at her attempt to help the prince and probably added to his banishment from the kingdom was in part what drove her mad. She knew what she had to do but she had failed. Now she had an unborn child to deal with. As she attempted to gather the herbs needed to facilitate her abortion she failed here also as it led to her accidental drowning. She was a strong woman who did all she could to help the man she loved. Her failure to help him drove her to madness and ultimately her death.