Hamlet and Ophelia

The relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia being as unclear as it is, there are two points where there is no doubt: 1.Hamlet did at some time love Ophelia sincerely. 2.When at her grave he cries: I loved Ophelia; forty thousand brothers Could not with all their quantity of love, Make up my sum, He must have spoken sincerely. Furthermore we may take for granted that he uses past tense because she is dead and not …

…fallen on her at the end of the play: her father is dead, her brother is away, and the man she loves is away and mad. She goes mad but not in a horrible and horrifying way. In her madness Ophelia continues sweet and loveable. Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself She turns to favour and to prettiness. We hear in her songs the undertones of sorrow but never agonized fear which makes madness dreadful.