The Devolution of Ophelia

Jamie, Josie, Jane, Stephanie, Maurice

Act I

• Ophelia– Assertive– Clever– Kind

• “I shall the effect of this good lesson keepAs watchman to my heat, but, good my brother,Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,Whiles, like a puffed and reckless libertine,Himself the primrose path of dalliance treadsAnd recks not his own rede.”

– Ophelia contests her brother’s suggestions telling him to mark his own words

Act II

• Ophelia first witnesses Hamlet’s madness– Deeply shaken, tells her father– “O my lord, my lord I have been so affrighted!”

• Question of loyalty to her love, Hamlet, or her father, Polonius– Begins to tear her personality

• Does she still love Hamlet? Is she too frightened of him now?

Act III: The Breakup

• Ophelia reluctantly ends her relationship with Hamlet– Plan orchestrated by her father and Claudius– Hamlet realizes it is upset

• Ophelia is weakened by the encounter– Hamlet confesses he “loved [her] not”– Confused by Hamlet’s questioning of her; upset by

his change in character

Act IV• Polonius is murdered by Hamlet• Ophelia loses her mind when she finds out

– Sings songs to the Queen– Constantly absent-minded– Distraught over loss of father– Guilty over love for Hamlet

• “Young men will do’t if they come to’t,By Cock, they are to blame.Quoth she, ‘Before you tumbled me,You promised me to wed.’He answers:‘So would I ‘a’ done, by yonder sun,And thou hadst not come to my bed.’”

• Cannot sanely converse with her brother, Laertes• Ophelia commits suicide by drowning in response to the

madness caused by Hamlet’s murdering of her father

Normal

Kind of confused

Pretty upset

Completely looney

Act IV

Act III

Act II

Act I

Ophelia: Time vs. Crazy Chart