Who She Is
Ophelia is the daughter of Polonius and sister of Laertes, and the young woman Hamlet courted. She goes mad, sings and hands out flowers in Act IV, and drowns in a stream, after falling from a branch.
Trajectory
In scene 3 of Act I, Laertes tells her that the prince’s love is passing and that an heir does not choose for himself, and Polonius, her father, calls the prince’s vows counterfeit coin and forbids any further conversation. Ophelia obeys.
In scene 1 of Act II, she comes in frightened to tell her father that the prince appeared disheveled, gripped her wrist, sighed and left without taking his eyes off her. She says that, on his orders, she returned the letters and refused the visits. In scene 1 of Act III, she is placed before Hamlet while the king and Polonius are hidden, hears from him harshness and the order to go to a convent, and Claudius concludes that it is not love.
In scene 5 of Act IV, weeks later, she is received by Gertrude, gone mad, singing about her dead father and lost love. She returns with flowers and songs, and Laertes, shaken, agrees to hear the king.
Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be.(IV.5)
In scene 7 of Act IV, Gertrude tells that she drowned in a stream, after falling from a branch. In scene 1 of Act V, two gravediggers debate whether a suicide deserves Christian burial, and the funeral arrives without the full rites. Laertes leaps into the grave, and Hamlet reveals himself.
Relationships
- Polonius: the father, who forbids her to speak with Hamlet and whose death drives her mad.
- Laertes: the brother, who warns her of the prince’s love and whose return finds her mad.
- Claudius: the king who sees her mad and uses Laertes’s grief.
- Gertrude: the queen who receives her and reports her death.
- Horatio: the prince’s friend whom the king orders to watch her.