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 confuse

d

Pretty upse

t

Completely looney

Act IV

Act III

Act II

Act I

Ophelia: Time vs. Crazy Chart