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Hamlet: The Character of Ophelia

Ophelia is gentle, loving and beautiful. She is also obedient to her father and loyal to her family and it is this which draws her into the circle of disaster and leads to her "untimely death". She is deeply in love with Hamlet and believes his "tenders" to be sincere, but her obedience to both her father and her brother must come first. Laertes tells her to beware of Hamlet's interest as it is driven by lust, not love. He also points out the difference in their background and rightly concludes that Hamlet is not in a position, as heir to the throne to choose freely who he will marry.

Polonius is also scornful of Hamlet's motives and concerned that he will be discredited by Ophelia's conduct. His command to her not to see Hamlet again is brutal, as is his decision to use her as a decoy to sound out the reason for Hamlet's eccentric behaviour. The fact that she obeys would be quite understandable to Shakespeare's audience, if not to a......

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Approximate Word Count: 5279
Approximate Pages: 22 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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