Ophelia is a character in Hamlet who is shown to be diagnosed with the mental illness “Schizophrenia”. Her diagnosis within the first acts of the play is weak, however, her mental illness reaches its peak in act 4, as a cluster of schizophrenia's symptoms are shown.
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.
In Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hamlet's biggest adversity is his own mind. Hamlet shows symptoms of Schizoaffective disorder, a subtype of schizophrenia that causes delusions and severe depression.
Introduction: The association between memory loss and Hodgkin's lymphoma has been given the eponym of Ophelia syndrome, in memory of Shakespeare's character in The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.
Ophelia's madness stems from her lack of identity and her feelings of helplessness regarding her own life. While the death of Hamlet's father made him angry enough to want revenge, Ophelia internalized the death of her father as a loss of personal identity.
Ophelia in the fourth act of Hamlet is demonstrably insane, but the direct cause of her slipped sanity is something that remains debatable.
Ophelia's tragic flaw is the loyalty she affords those she loves. This loyalty renders her incapable of emotionally handling his mistreatment, in addition to the demands of her father and brother.
Tragic flaw: Ophelia has no control over her mind, body, and relationships, she doesn't think for herself.
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.
In The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, several characters exhibit the signs of possible psychological disorders, such as Prince Hamlet, Ophelia, and Polonius. With Polonius, Shakespeare seems to characterize a sneaky, untrustworthy snake of a man.
Positive symptoms of schizophrenia, including hallucinations and delusions, have been described throughout ancient Egyptian, Hindu, Chinese, Greek, and Roman writings. Emil Kraepelin, a German physician, was one of the first to classify schizophrenia using the term “dementia praecox”, meaning premature dementia.
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.
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.
Ophelia's Death
Perhaps the most tragic death in "Hamlet" is one the audience doesn't witness. Ophelia's death is reported by Gertrude: Hamlet's would-be bride falls from a tree and drowns in a brook. Whether or not her death was a suicide is the subject of much debate among Shakespearean scholars.
Had she the license to think for herself, Ophelia might have reasoned through her dilemma, but, caught as she is between her father's and brother's restrictive instructions and Hamlet's crushing demands, trapped as she is in a choice-less existence, Ophelia has no alternative but to throw herself into the river to ...
Unlike the other characters in the play, Ophelia died from loving too much, being too innocent, and too pure. She died because of her virtues, while others perished because of their faults. She did nothing wrong, but so many wrongs were dealt to her.
As Ophelia is laid in the earth, Hamlet realizes it is she who has died. At the same moment, Laertes becomes infuriated with the priest, who says that to give Ophelia a proper Christian burial would profane the dead. Laertes leaps into Ophelia's grave to hold her once again in his arms.
In the play of Romeo and Juliet written by William Shakespeare, fate controls the character by using their fatal flaws against them, Romeo's fatal flaw is his impetuousness, Juliet's fatal flaw is her impulsiveness, and Friar Lawrence's fatal flaw is that he is blinded by his goal to bring peace to Verona.
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's drowning is the consummate representation of an eternal retreat into the feminine, trading an individual voice for eternal silence in union with feminine essence. In turn, her death expresses the danger of reducing an individual to his or her gender and disregarding the voice of the marginalized.
Hamlet seems to know that Ophelia is helping her dad spy on him, and he accuses her (and all women) of being a "breeder of sinners" and orders Ophelia to a "nunnery" (3.1.
The survey proposed nine alternative names, based partly on the experience of people diagnosed with schizophrenia. Among them: altered perception disorder, attunement disorder, disconnectivity syndrome, integration disorder and psychosis spectrum disorder.