Ah, Ophelia. She is an enigma. We know that Ophelia
affects other characters profoundly, but during the entire play, Ophelia has only one
soliloquy, so we are not privy to her thoughts. We see her mainly as others see her,
and she becomes the victim of the corruption within in the court. Her death by water
rather than poison is perhaps indicative of her innocent
nature.
But if I had to choose one quote to some her up, I
would look at her one soliloquy:
O woe is me
T'have
seen what I have seen, see what I
see!
Caught between obedience
to her father and her love for Hamlet, Ophelia chooses her father. In so doing, she
witnesses Hamlet's pretend insanity and later his intense anger toward her. His
frustration with her choice and with his situation in general causes him to lash out at
her, repeatedly telling her to "Get thee to a nunnery."
As
if the change in Hamlet is not enough, Ophelia learns that the man she once loved killed
her father. It is a tragic event that she cannot handle. It completely breaks
her.
Even Claudius feels remorse when he sees the mad
Ophelia,
When
sorrows come they come not in single spies, but in
battalions.
Ophelia witnesses
her transformed lover turn into a madman and her father murdered at his hands. It is no
wonder that she goes mad and slips into the brook and submits to its current. Her death
is a passive acceptance of the currents that are much too strong for her. I think even
Hamlet recognizes that Ophelia could not withstand the corrupted currents of the court
when he advised her to go to a nunnery. But by Act 4, Ophelia becomes the victim of the
struggles of others: she has witnessed too much and what she has seen literally and
figuratively drowns her.
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