The impact that Ophelia has on Hamlet, the conflict, and the outcome of the play - Essay Example

Prince Hamlet’s anger is made emphatic by the succession of Claudius to the throne whom he believes to be the murderer of his real father. When in addition to that Claudius also marries his mother Gertrude, Hamlet becomes fixated on getting revenge. A very painful sequence of events is portrayed by Shakespeare in the play which forces Hamlet to fake madness and reach his objectives. Ophelia is a very important character in the play who is introduced as Hamlet’s love interest. In the Elizabethan times in which Hamlet was published, a woman still had not rights and was expected to behave like an automaton.

This is especially obvious in the way she complies with all of her father’s orders regardless of their nature as she is unmarried and expected to obey her father, Polonius. She even betrays Hamlet to play submissive to Polonius. The purpose of this essay is to explore the role of Ophelia to analyze what impact is produced by this key character on Hamlet, the conflict in the play, and the eventual outcome. The essay will also scrutinize if this character changes over the course of the play or not.

While the audience knows that Hamlet’s madness is fake and not pathological, other characters in the play are ignorant of this reality including Ophelia. It is because of this ignorance that Ophelia is asked by Polonius to spy on Hamlet for him. This act of Ophelia further serves to potentiate Hamlet’s belief that all women are deranged and of weak character. This also extinguishes any love he used to have for Ophelia who in her loyalty to her father loses Hamlet. When Hamlet says, “I did love you once” (III.i.114), it suggests that Ophelia due to her conniving attitude has lost Hamlet’s respect for herself.

This is the impact produced by Ophelia on Hamlet that she further mutilates his idea about women. Hamlet, who is already anguished over Gertrude’s betrayal by marrying Claudius, develops a firm belief that women in deed are manipulative and hateful creatures who should never be trusted. Ophelia produces a very negative impact on Hamlet. He becomes convinced that Ophelia like all women is a “breeder of sinners” (III.i.121-22) and curses her as a degraded woman who should be sent to a brothel.

It is the kind of distressing effect produced by Ophelia on Hamlet’s mind that right after claiming that he used to love her once not knowing her true manipulative intentions, he again claims that “I lov’d you not” (III.i.117) suggesting he never loved her in the first place. Clearly in Hamlet’s world, Ophelia works only to strengthen the anguish felt by him leaving him more distressed and unsettled than before. She has no personal agency herself as she is a single woman of Elizabethan times expected to obey her father and also take her lover’s abuse.

She does not have the potential to reject her father’s order of spying on Hamlet for Claudius’s benefit and furthers the story of the play by adding to Hamlet’s mental troubles. When Hamlet says, “you jig, you amble, and you lisp” (III.i.144), he suggests that he is fed up of women like Ophelia who change constantly and are not trustworthy. Actually, Hamlet’s personal opinion about women is very degrading and has little to do with Ophelia’s betrayal. He makes up his mind to always think low of women after his mother’s betrayal.

He questions Ophelia’s character, but avoids remembering that he has himself used her in the past to convey this message to others that his insanity is not due to any suspicious reason but because of the abundance of love he has for Ophelia. While this is done by Hamlet in an attempt to