Who Is Ophelia in Hamlet and What Happens to Her?
A daughter told what to feel, a prince who turns on her and a river
Ophelia is the daughter of Polonius, the king's adviser, and the sister of Laertes. Hamlet has been courting her before the play begins. She is ordered by her father to reject him, is treated cruelly by Hamlet, and after Hamlet kills her father she loses her mind and drowns in a brook.
Whether her death was an accident or her own choice is left open, and the play's characters argue about it at her grave.
Ophelia and her family
Ophelia is young, obedient and loving, the only daughter in a household run by men. Her brother Laertes, leaving for France, warns her that a prince cannot choose his own wife. Her father goes further and orders her to stop seeing Hamlet altogether. She agrees, and from then on she is used by everyone around her, most of all as bait in her father's plan to find out why Hamlet has gone mad.
↑ Back to the topDid Hamlet love Ophelia?
The play gives both answers. Hamlet wrote her love letters, and at her grave he shouts that his love was greater than that of forty thousand brothers. Yet in the scene where he senses he is being watched, he mocks her, denies he ever loved her and tells her to shut herself away from the world. Some actors play his cruelty as part of his pretended madness. Others play it as real anger at the women he feels have betrayed him, and some as a performance for the hidden listeners that hurts him as much as her.
↑ Back to the topWhat happens when Ophelia goes mad?
After her father's death, Ophelia appears at court singing snatches of old songs about love and death and handing out flowers and herbs: rosemary for remembrance, pansies for thoughts, fennel, columbine, rue and daisies. She says the violets withered when her father died. Each flower had a meaning Shakespeare's audience would have known, and she seems to give each person the one that fits them. Her brother returns to find her unrecognizable, and it sharpens his thirst for revenge.
↑ Back to the topHow does Ophelia die?
Her death happens offstage. Gertrude describes how Ophelia climbed a willow over a brook to hang garlands on its branches, a branch broke, and she fell into the water. For a while her clothes kept her afloat as she sang, not seeming to understand the danger, until they grew heavy and pulled her under.
At the graveyard, two gravediggers joke about whether she drowned herself, and the official in charge allows only reduced rites because her death was doubtful. Laertes leaps into the grave in grief, Hamlet follows, and they fight over her body. Gertrude scatters flowers on her coffin, saying she had hoped to see her as Hamlet's bride.
↑ Back to the topWhy is Ophelia so famous in art?
Gertrude's description of the drowning inspired generations of painters. The best-known image is John Everett Millais's Ophelia of 1851 to 1852, now in Tate Britain in London, which shows her floating among flowers. Writers have since given her a voice of her own, including the 2018 film Ophelia with Daisy Ridley, which retells the story from her side.
↑ Back to the topOphelia's story, scene by scene
| Moment | Act | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Warned off | 1 | Laertes and Polonius tell her Hamlet cannot be serious; she obeys |
| A frightening visit | 2 | Hamlet appears in her room, pale and wordless |
| The cruel scene | 3 | Hamlet turns on her while Polonius and Claudius spy |
| Her father dies | 3 | Hamlet kills Polonius by mistake |
| The flowers | 4 | She sings and hands out flowers, no longer herself |
| Her death | 4 | Gertrude reports she has drowned |
| The funeral | 5 | Laertes and Hamlet fight in her grave |
More about Hamlet
Books Like Hamlet
The PearlJohn Steinbeck
The Scarlet LetterNathaniel Hawthorne
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A Midsummer Night's DreamWilliam Shakespeare
Wuthering HeightsEmily Brontë
All Quiet on the Western FrontErich Maria Remarque
Much Ado About NothingWilliam Shakespeare
Animal FarmGeorge OrwellThis guide discusses the whole plot, including the ending.