Essay: Explore Hamlet’s Impact on Ophelia’s Mental Health in Shakespeare’s Play

At the start of the play, it is obvious that Hamlet is experiencing difficulties in his life. His father has just died and now his father’s brother, Claudius, is married to his mother. He is depressed and experiencing intense grief where he feels like life is not worth living. He has found one reason for living though, and that is to murder Claudius to get his father’s revenge.
Hamlet’s family dynamic is tense and full of animosity. Claudius and Gertrude tell Hamlet to get over the death of his father and that his prolonged grief is unmanly. When Claudius refers to Hamlet as his son, Hamlet responds, “a little more than kin, a little less than kind” (Hamlet.1.2.65). During Hamlet’s first soliloquy, he expresses his disgust and resentment towards his mother for marrying his father’s brother so quickly after his father’s death, calling the union “incestuous”. He states how he is depressed due to his father’s death and is still grieving the loss. Hamlet compares his own life to an “unweeded garden.” Similar to a garden that has weeds that take over and suffocate the surrounding healthy plants, his life is being suffocated by Claudius’ marriage to his mother. Hamlet says the garden grows “things rank and gross in nature;” Hamlet sees his life in the same way: polluted by the wickedness of Claudius. In Hamlet’s own life, his garden is dying while the weeds overtake everything that was healthy.
While Hamlet is already disgusted and grieved by the incestous union of his mother and Claudius, he then discovers that Claudius murdered his father. The ghost of his father appears to Hamlet and reveals that he was poisoned by Claudius. When Hamlet’s loyal friend Horatio enters the scene, Hamlet informs him of his plan to put on an “antic disposition” to throw off suspicion while he plots Claudius’ death (Hamlet.1.5.172). This makes it very clear to the reader that in the future of the play, his madness will be feigned.
“How strange or odd soe’er I bear myself / As I perchance hereafter shall think meet / To put an antic disposition on / That you at such time seeing me never shall, / With arms encumbered thus, or thus head shaked, / Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase / As, “Well, we know” or “We could anan if we would,”/ Or if we list to speak,” or “There be an if they might,”/ Or such ambiguous giving out note / That you know aught of me.”
While Hamlet seeing a ghost could indicate he is also in a state of madness, his confession here makes clear that he knows what he is doing. Because Horatio and a second witness also see the ghost, this lends credibility to Hamlet’s account. Horatio is depicted as the rational character in the play, which supports the claim that the ghost is visible.
The reader next hears of Hamlet’s madness from Ophelia, Hamlet’s love interest and the daughter of Polonius, the chamberlain to King Claudius. Ophelia goes to tell Polonius that Hamlet burst into her room in a state of disarray with a look “so piteous in purpose / as if he had been loosed out of hell”(Hamlet.2.1.82-83). She continues on and tells her father that he grabbed her arm. Shakespeare uses dramatic irony in this scene as Hamlet appears crazed even though the reader knows that he went into her room in such a state to give the appearance of madness. Ophelia is concerned for Hamlet, while Polonius thinks he is mad because of his love for Ophelia. In reality, Hamlet is putting on an act. He knows that Ophelia will tell Polonius of the episode, who will in turn inform Claudius. This cunning on Hamlet’s behalf further shows his intentionality in hiding behind an image of insanity while he remains in full control and manipulates the situation.
Hamlet continues to manipulate Polonius by using insults that Hamlet knows Polonius does not have the intelligence to comprehend. To Polonius, these comments seem like the ramblings of a mad man, while in reality, they are cleverly disguised insults. For example, Hamlet calls Polonius a “fishmonger,” which has a double meaning. In that time, it was not just a man who sold fish, but also a “pimp.”, therefore implying that Polonius uses Ophelia for his own gain. Just as a pimp controls prostitutes for material gain, Polonius uses Ophelia to find inside information on Hamlet. While he has convinced Polonius, Gertrude, and Claudius of his madness, he tells his friend Guildenstern, “I am but mad north-north-west: when the / wind / is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.” He is implying that even as others perceive him as being mad, he is aware of what’s happening.
In act 3, scene 4, Hamlet is asked to go talk to his mother. Little does he know Polonius is hidden behind a curtain. As Gertrude and Hamlet talk, Hamlet can no longer contain his rage and starts to yell at his mother. When she says “what wilt thou do? Thou wilt not / murder me? / Help, help, ho!”Polonius responded “What, ho! Help, help, help!” Hamlet hears this and in rage believes it is Claudius spying on him so he stabs Polonius who is hidden behind the curtain. In a plot twist, Hamlet kills Ophelia’s father, which sends her into a spiral of grief and actual madness. Shakespeare uses dramatic irony to create a parallel between Hamlet and Ophelia. Hamlet harms others by weaponizing his false madness, creating actual madness or insanity in the person he loves.
Ophelia goes mad due to the overwhelming grief of her father’s death. Her madness is genuine. Ophelia is summoned to see Queen Gertrude, who wants to keep how Polonius was killed under wraps. Ophelia acts strangely, and after she comes in to see the queen, she then proceeds to sing a song. Shakespeare uses her insanity to allow her to speak her mind. As a woman of lower nobility, she did not have a voice and was not able to say what she really thought to the king and queen. She then hands out rosemary, pansies, fennel, columbines, rue, and a daisy. These flowers are symbols and have more than one meaning: Rosemary, she tells the company, is for remembrance, the pansies are for thought, the fennel is for flattery, columbines signify adultery, rue is for adultery, everlasting suffering, genuine repentance of all transgression for women. She gave rue to herself and Gertrude. This represents Gertrude’s infidelity, her suffering after her husband died, and her repentance for marrying Claudius. For Ophelia, it represents her suffering due to the death of her father and Hamlet’s mistreatment of her. Violets represent faithfulness and not having any may mean that the faithfulness is gone from the area. Ophelia chooses flowers that have a symbolic meaning and allows her to express how she feels indirectly.
In act 4, scene 7, as Laertes and Claudius are talking, Gertrude enters the room and informs Laertes that Ophelia has drowned. She describes how Ophelia was climbing a willow tree to hang a wreath she had made with flowers and the tree branch broke. She fell into a river and was kept afloat by her clothes. While in the river she sang but her clothes got too heavy and she was pulled under the water where she drowned. Her death could have been a suicide where she simply had lost too much, like her father and Hamlet, and had nothing left to live for. It could have also been an accident where she was not aware that she was in any danger due to her madness.
Hamlet and Ophelia’s cause for madness, real or feigned, is the death of a father. Ophelia’s grief and resulting madness is genuine, her insanity gives her a voice in which she uses symbols to indirectly express her feeling that she would not be able to express due to her being a woman in a low position in the social hierarchy. Hamlet’s false madness covers the underlying meanings in his replies to other characters and his plan to murder Claudius for revenge. Shakespeare depicts insanity as an exaggerated manifestation of typical grief too. Regardless, Hamlet’s grief causes an even greater tragedy because his grief leads to more loss and death. Just like the rotten garden, the play ends with a sense of total decay. The garden cannot be cleaned by its owner, but will rather be cleaned by an outsider, the king of a neighboring land.