(2nd Play) Hamlet. My thoughts of the play: Central Themes and Ideals

An Inevitable Tragedy

    The common denominator of William Shakespeare’s plays always includes a beautiful tragedy. In his twisted masterpiece, Hamlet, the plot is thick and the characters are tormented with conflicting forces pulling them internally in opposite directions. The character Ophelia, whom is the daughter of Polonius, the sister of Laertes and the love interest of Hamlet, is torn between obeying her father’s every command and pursuing her own individuality. Ultimately these character flaws and the actions of others are what contribute to the tragic death of Ophelia. She is so absorbed in pleasing others and has grown so accustom to being controlled by her father that she looses her sense of self and falls short of possessing any true identity of her own. Ohpelia slowly plummets into a consuming black hole and is defeated by her internal conflicting forces.
    Polonius executes constant control on his daughter; Ophelia surrenders to it without objection. Without any form of a mother figure mentioned in the play it is easy to assume that Ophelia hasn’t received any guidance from anyone but her father, with the occasional two-sense of her brother. She is afraid of challenging her father because she has no one else in the world, besides her brother Laertes, and fears of being on her own because without Polonius she becomes vulnerable and amounts to nothing. An example where Ophelia succumbs to her father’s commands is when he orders her not to see Hamlet anymore. This contributes to what conflicts her because Polonius’ domineering personality is what fuels her desire to rebel against him and go after what she craves for, her freedom. Freedoms that she longs for are the freedoms to make decisions for herself, to love and be with Hamlet, the protagonist of the play whom suffers the loss of his father the king and seeks revenge on the ones who had a hand in it, and the freedom to be able to live her life in imperfection and to learn on her own.  
    In the play, when Hamlet devastated Ophelia by telling her that he no longer loved her it sparked a chain of events that ignited with her internal conflicts resulting in her tragic death. Shakespeare has a way of incorporating tragedies within his play that are not only beautifying to his overall masterpiece but sends a meaningful message. In Hamlet there are many tragedies that occur amongst the characters. Ophelia’s death was a tragedy because it was triggered by the actions of others and had an impacting affect on all of the characters. When Claudius poisoned and murdered his brother the King, old Hamlet, young Hamlet finally came to know of the truth through his father, old Hamlet’s. ghost and wanted a violent and justifying revenge. But in order to get his revenge he hatched a plan to act as though her were mad, and in his faulty madness he not only led Ophelia to believe that he no longer loved her but he even slayed Polonius, killing him in the closet scene of the play mistaking him to be Claudius, all in which started the downward spiral of Ophelia. With her lost love being the cause of her father’s death Ophelia is almost alone at this point with no one to guide her but Laertes and she undergoes true madness. In her madness she takes her own life, in drowning herself in a brook, committing the ultimate tragedy that Shakespeare is noted for incorporating into his plays. Her watery suicide causes a domino effect on the characters, which is what makes it a tragedy.
    The need to obey her father and the desire to quench her thirst for her own passions is what brings Ophelia to her tragic, watery death. The message that Shakespeare successfully delivered in the tragic occurrence in his play was that everyone can impact each others lives either benefiting them or bringing them to their end. Ophelia’s death not only intertwines with the characters but it illuminates the meaning of Shakespeare’s message of his beautified tragedy.