It would have been risky for Shakespeare directly to portray pre-marital sex between aristocratic characters, but Hamlet gives us reasons to suspect that at some point before the beginning of the play, Hamlet and Ophelia have had sex.
Laertes must have been clued in to Ophelia's pregnancy. Polonius inadvertently admits to such a claim. Polonius's knowledge is revealed when Hamlet discloses that he knows Ophelia, his lady love might be pregnant. Check out the words that Hamlet uses when he confronts Polonious.
Ophelia is Polonius' daughter and Laertes' sister. Hamlet has been in love with her for a while before the play starts and has given her several gifts during their courtship until her father warns her away from him and tells her not to see him anymore. During the play, he treats her very badly.
She is a young noblewoman of Denmark, the daughter of Polonius, sister of Laertes and potential wife of Prince Hamlet, who, due to Hamlet's actions, ends up in a state of madness that ultimately leads to her drowning.
Bidding his sister, Ophelia, farewell, he cautions her against falling in love with Hamlet, who is, according to Laertes, too far above her by birth to be able to love her honorably. Since Hamlet is responsible not only for his own feelings but for his position in the state, it may be impossible for him to marry her.
Their particular form of madness was more related to hysteria -- an affliction which was considered to be particularly feminine. Clinically speaking, Ophelia's behavior and appearance are characteristic of the malady the Elizabethans would have diagnosed as female love-melancholy, or erotomania.
Background: Ophelia's syndrome is the association of Hodgkin's Lymphoma and memory loss, coined by Dr. Carr in 1982, while it's most remembered for the eponym in reminiscence of Shakespeare's character, Dr.
Hamlet shows throughout the play that he is really in love with Ophelia. One piece of evidence showing that Hamlet really did love Ophelia is when he tells her, “I did love you” (Act 3 scene 1 line 126). Hamlet confesses that he truly loved her, but then goes back on his word and says he never loved.
While she lives in the same patriarchal society that demands that she subjugate herself to her father and her brother until she is married, Ophelia has fallen in love with Prince Hamlet. There is strong evidence that she has even had sexual relations with him.
Ophelia is not only subject to the torture of others using her for their intentions but she is also susceptible to abuse from Hamlet. Both her father and her brother believe that Hamlet is using her to achieve his own personal goals.
Hamlet is cruel to Ophelia because he has transferred his anger at Gertrude's marriage to Claudius onto Ophelia. In fact, Hamlet's words suggest that he transfers his rage and disgust for his mother onto all women.
During an angry tirade against Ophelia, Hamlet blames his madness on women, particularly on what he sees as women's habit of disguising themselves with make-up and feminine behavior. Hamlet often struggles with the difficulty of separating disguises from reality, but he also seems obsessed with female sexuality.
Who Is Ophelia? Ophelia is the daughter of Polonius, one of King Claudius' closest friends. She is described as a beautiful young woman, and she is also the love interest of the main character in the story Hamlet. Her love for Hamlet and her loyalty to her father creates friction and leads to tragedy in Ophelia's life.
In the movie, Ophelia does not die. Instead, after realizing that Hamlet's quest for revenge against King Claudius could prove hazardous to her own health — and deducing that she is pregnant with Hamlet's baby — Ophelia fakes her drowning death.
(See "Connection to Hamlet and other plays" below for a discussion about Hamnet's potential relationship to his father's tragedy, Hamlet.) Hamnet Shakespeare was probably raised principally by his mother Anne in the Henley Street house belonging to his grandfather.
The interpretation which best fits the evidence best is that Hamlet was suffering from an acute depressive illness, with some obsessional features. He could not make a firm resolve to act. In Shakespeare's time there was no concept of acute depressive illness, although melancholy was well known.
(1) Hamlet was at one time sincerely and ardently in love with Ophelia. For she herself says that he had importuned her with love in honourable fashion, and had given countenance to his speech with almost all the holy vows of heaven (I.
One moment he says 'I did love you once', the next 'I loved you not'. He goes on to insult Ophelia and tells her to go to a nunnery. He tells her that this will be the best place for her and, by being a nun, Ophelia won't have children and produce wicked men like his uncle.
On top of this, Hamlet, who Ophelia loved, was also the perpetrator of her father's death. These events eventually lead for Ophelia to commit suicide, who Hamlet grieves over and feels guilty, regretting what he said of not loving her and killing her father.
At the top of Act Three Polonius forces Ophelia to return Hamlet's letters and renounce his affections.
Hamlet's sexually objectifies Ophelia when he asks her if he can lie on her lap (Act 3, scene 2, 105). This behavior is Hamlet's attempt to transfer his frustrations about his mother. Hamlet reconfirms his sincere love for Ophelia at her death bed.
Laertes' love for Ophelia and duty to Polonius drive him to passionate action, while Hamlet's love for Gertrude and duty to King Hamlet drive him to passionate inaction.
Her heart has convinced her that Hamlet loved her, though he swears he never did. To her father and brother, Ophelia is the eternal virgin, the vessel of morality whose purpose is to be a dutiful wife and steadfast mother. To Hamlet, she is a sexual object, a corrupt and deceitful lover.
Ophelia's final words are addressed to either Hamlet, or her father, or even herself and her lost innocence: “And will a not come again? / No, no, he is dead, / Go to thy death-bed, / He never will come again. / … / God a mercy on his soul. And of all Christian souls. God buy you.” Next, she drowns herself.
Tragic flaw: Ophelia has no control over her mind, body, and relationships, she doesn't think for herself.