In what way is Shakespeare's tragedy _Hamlet_ really about Ophelia, Hamlet's girlfriend?

Question

I am just finishing watching Kenneth Branagh's 1996 version of _Hamlet_. I've watched a number of times before, but never really realized just how much a role Ophelia plays in the lives of her brother, Laertes, and her lover, Hamlet, whom the play is ostensibly about. Is _Hamlet_ just a love story wherein the main character is too obsessed with his father's death to see straight? Is Hamlet responsible for Ophelia's suicide? Given the circumstances of Ophelia's drowning, should she have had a full Christian burial?

I really like the answers people have provided so far. The answers are thoughtful, not "quippy" like the answers to so many of the other questions (even I'm guilty of that--hypocrisy). Anyway, I hope a couple of more people post. I think I posted this question because Kate Winslet plays Ophelia in Branagh's 1996 version and I'm just in love with her. Soon I will pick a best answer--does anyone here want to add anything? I like the posting about think about the play as if it is about three men who have in common that they've lost their fathers--that's a new take on this play to me, thanks.

Answer 1

Well, the play is about Hamlet, otherwise Shakespeare would have named it Ophelia. . . .

However, that being said - Othello wouldn't interest us nearly as much without Desdemona. In many ways, these women (and many others) form the "heart" of the play. The men get caught up in their obsession (revenge, power, jealousy) so strongly that they wind up consciously or unconsciously sacrificing the women they love in their quest. Is Hamlet "responsible" for Ophelia's suicide? No, only she can be responsible for her own actions. Could he be the cause of it? Most certainly he is a part of it, along with her feelings towards her father and her brother, and her torn loyalties. There are many, many theories out there (was she pregnant with Hamlet's baby? did she really adore her father? did she go mad because her brother would challenge Hamlet to avenge the death of his father, thus ensuring one of the two men she truly loved would die?) that you can choose to read/believe or not, and figure out why you think she committed suicide.

This is one of the reasons why so many love Shakespeare so much - because 400 years after the plays were written, these questions can still debated and there is no right or wrong answer.

As far as her burial, as her death was questionable she could not receive a full Christian burial and even what she was given was only because of her high connection to the royal family. During Shakespeare's time, this was a hotly debated issue - suicide was seen both as an act of despair and self-destruction, and as a noble act that should be rewarded. Shakespeare, by putting this debate in the play, weighed in on where his opinion fell - that it was not something to hold up and praise.

Answer 2

No, "Hamlet" is not just a love story. Hamlet's (complicated) relationship with Ophelia certainly drives many parts of the action, but is not the main focus of the play. To continue with your sight metaphor, while Hamlet might not be seeing straight, his relationship with Ophelia is strictly part of his peripheral vision. Avenging his father's murder is Hamlet's main focus, and everything else that happens is incidental to that.

Hamlet is not responsible for Ophelia's suicide in the sense of encouraging her to do it, but responsible in the sense that he contributed (along with Laertes and Polonius) to putting her in an untenable and hopeless position from which she finally, in her madness, saw suicide as the most expedient means of escape.

Which circumstances of her drowning do you mean? Her insanity? Insanity is used as a criminal defense, but I'm not so sure that the Catholic or Protestant religions make a moral distinction like that where suicide is concerned. I certainly don't think they would have made such a distinction in Shakespeare's day.

Post script: So the person for whom "Hamlet" is really all about Ophelia is you... : ) Seriously, I think it's great that you're watching the film - it's a magnificent spectacle (shot on 70mm, which very few films are) and the full text provides much illumination missing from abbreviated versions (Polonius winds up appearing more manipulative and devious, for one thing).

Answer 3

I agree with some of the prior respondents; Ophelia is a necessary character, but I think it's a mistake to suppose that the play is "about" her.

If you're looking for a better "prism" through which to observe the action of the tragedy, consider this: "Hamlet" is essentially the story of THREE SONS (Hamlet, Laertes, and Fortinbras), all of whom have lost their fathers. They react and respond to their losses in very different ways. Naturally, Hamlet's actions are at the fore; the other two men provide contrast.

As to the extent of Hamlet's relationship with Ophelia...

I am reminded of a line supposedly spoken by the late, great John Barrymore. While he was playing the role of Hamlet, Barrymore was asked in an interview: "Does Hamlet sleep with Ophelia?" Barrymore's reply: "In MY company, always!"

Answer 4

As the role of Ophelia has been adequately discussed, I'm just going to throw in my 2 cents on the burial part. She is given a Christian burial because no one really knows whether or not she meant to drown herself. In the last scene of Act IV:
QUEEN GERTRUDE
There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;
There with fantastic garlands did she come
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them:
There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:
Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element: but long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.

At the beginning of the next Act, the clowns digging the grave joke about how the Church had accepted the explanation that it was not a witting death, and their acceptance was probably because she was a lady. At any rate, though the audience discerns that Ophelia probably intended her death, the evidence for it isn't without room for accident--and the accident gives reason for a Christian burial.

Answer 5

The more to it is that she is a typical Renaissance girl who obeys her father and brother and who must be married by 15 or 16 or she might remain an old maid..Remember people only lived to be about forty. Women also were dependent upon men to provide their livelihood.

Answer 6

Well, you can interpret it as such, but most anyone out there will say you are wrong.
Hamlet is a story of a prince who is out to get revenge for the murder of his father, and during his pursuit to get revenge, ends up causing the death of many people around him.
Yes, he is partly responsible for her death, but she was warned to stay away from him, and she didn't, so she made her choice too.

Who cares what kind of burial she should get?!?! She's a ficticious character!!!!