The Tragedy Of Ophelia In Shakespeare's Hamlet

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Hamlet is a vengeance disaster which focuses primarily on Hamlet’s wish and attempt to avenge his father’s death. Part of this tragedy centers around the character Ophelia and his relationship with her. Ophelia has restricted rights as a woman in a patriarchal society. Ophelia needs to be well-behaved and is not allowed to express herself and her true feelings. What happens in Ophelia’s life revolves by the whims of the men who control her. She is well-behaved to her father, brother and to the king, even though she tries to do what is right, she is often drawn along by these men. The only end that she sees is in madness and eventually death. As a mad woman, Ophelia would not be obligated by the societal control of women; she could have a …show more content…
After seeing the ghost of his father, Hamlet promises to avenge his death and decides that faking his madness will provide him with the means to prove Claudius' guilt. Following his first meeting with his father’s ghost, Hamlet is eagerly speaking with Marcellus and Horatio and tells them: “but come / Here, as before, never, so help you mercy / How strange or odd soe'er I bear myself- / As I perchance hereafter shall think meet / To put an antic disposition on- / That you, at such times seeing me, never shall, / With arms encumbered thus, or this headshake, / Or by pronouncing some doubtful phrase /.... That you know aught of me - this do swear, / So grace and mercy at your most need help you.” (Act 1, Scene 5, Lines 177-189). Hamlet explains in this passage that if he is appearing to be acting mad, or putting on an "antic disposition," they should not be worried or act as if they know some secret about him. His plan to fake madness provides him with the means which to act and speak in ways which would under normal conditions would not be acceptable. Thanks to his plan of faking his madness he is able to prove Claudius'

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