Ophelia's death results from Hamlet's madness and his telling Ophelia that she needs to go to a nunnery. The cause of Ophelia's suicide was mainly from Hamlet's madness.
Interestingly, Hamlet never expresses a sense of guilt over Ophelia's death, which he indirectly caused through his murder of Polonius.
The catalyst that brings Ophelia to her end is Polonius' death by Hamlet's hand. Ophelia's estranged lover killed her father on a whim, thinking he was a rat behind a tapestry. At this point in the drama, Ophelia has no recourse or protection.
In Document C it states that Hamlet kills Ophelia's father mistaking him for Claudius which caused Ophelia to go crazy and end up drowning and dying.
It is likely that Hamlet really was in love with Ophelia. Readers know Hamlet wrote love letters to Ophelia because she shows them to Polonius. In addition, Hamlet tells Ophelia, “I did love you once” (3.1. 117).
By the way he acted around Ophelia when he was alone with her, he showed that his feelings for her were true. Hamlet's actions throughout the play show that he was really in love with Ophelia. The audience can see that Hamlet really did love Ophelia when he told her, “I did love you” (Shakespeare III 125).
People can stage Hamlet that way, but there is no evidence in the script that Ophelia is pregnant. The best evidence that she has had sex with Hamlet is the song she sings that ends: “Quoth she, 'Before you tumbled me, you promised me to wed. '
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.
So she has resolved that at the moment of informing Laertes of the sad event she must urge that it was purely accidental, while to lessen the bitterness of it she will assure him that the death was painless, Ophelia's mind having too far gone for her to feel 'her own distress.
For the Elizabethans, Hamlet was the prototype of melancholy male madness, associated with intellectual and imaginative genius; but Ophelia's affliction was erotomania, or love-madness.
Ophelia's death symbolizes a life spent passively tolerating Hamlet's manipulations and the restrictions imposed by those around her, while struggling to maintain the last shred of her dignity.
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.
Hamlet uses Ophelia for his own personal gain, he toys with her emotions by making to seem as though she is the cause of his madness. Hamlet emotionally abuses Ophelia with no regard for her psychological well-being.
Some see Ophelia's death as an accident; others see it as a suicide resulting from the accumulation of a series of unfortunate events: her rejection by her boyfriend, her father's murder, and her possible pregnancy.
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. 131; 132), i.e. a brothel. But she can't call him out on his language, because, as a good girl, she can't admit that she knows what it means.
Ophelia gained the character of an invalid as a result of her insanity, and the intrinsic passivity of her death intensifies her sensuality. She lay still in the water like a mermaid, wearing a flowy white gown, entirely at the mercy of the onlooker's gaze.
She may be sending Laertes a message with this gift. Fennel is said to have symbolized flattery and adultery. Columbines were for ingratitude, adultery, faithlessness, or deceived lovers. (The fennel and columbine may have been for Gertrude, she had been unfaithful.
The main reason that Gertrude does not want to see Ophelia is because she (Gertrude) feels guilty over the fact that her son Hamlet killed Ophelia's father, Polonius, and because Polonius was buried quickly and without much formality.
“Ophelia: There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember. And there is pansies, that's for thoughts. . . . There's fennel for you, and columbines.
While it is evident that Ophelia is grieving over the death of her father, Polonius, as Horatio says of her “She speaks much of her father, says she hears / There's tricks in the world, and hems, and beats her heart” (4.5.
Does Ophelia know Hamlet killed her father? - Quora. We can assume so yes. It's part of what drives her to suicide. The sense in the play is that Hamlet is justified in stabbing someone hiding behind the arras as he believes it to be a rat and it is an unfortunate accident.
Ophelia is Polonius' daughter and Laertes' sister. She has been in a relationship with Hamlet. Claudius is the newly crowned King of Denmark and husband to Gertrude. He is Hamlet's uncle.
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.
Hamlet is distraught and suspicious. He professes his undying love to Ophelia, and they are secretly married. Soon afterward, he tells Ophelia that he plans to murder Claudius.
He tells her that the only way she will be able to protect herself from her female nature – the fickleness and betrayal that he attributes to women – would be to lock herself away in a nunnery where she will not have any contact with men and therefore be unable to betray them.