DT Ophelia

            Ophelia was given proper burial rites and was honored after her death, but did she earn all of this? All of these honors given to her at burial were recommended by the king, but the priest and gravediggers seem to disagree with his choice. She technically committed suicide, which was shunned by people of this time, so did she actually deserve this honored burial?

            I think that she deserved all the honor she received. She was not in her proper state of mind when she drowned so she might not even have known she was drowning. Somebody should have been with her when this incident happened anyway. Everybody in the castle knew that she wasn’t right in the head, and yet nobody was there to save her from drowning. What I am trying to get at is that it wasn’t really her fault when she drowned in the stream. She was, what seemed to be, completely insane, and therefore can be given the proper burial she deserved.

            If we go back to the reason she came to this mental state, the primary reason would be the conflict between Claudius and Hamlet. It was because of this conflict that her father Polonius was killed, sending her into madness. Her father was the only family that lived with her for long periods of time, (the other being Laertes l which was heading back to France), so this loss would cause some mental instability. If there was anyone to blame for her death, it would be Claudius and Hamlet.

            From what we read in the book, and saw in the movie, Ophelia’s funeral was quick and was mostly silent until Hamlet showed himself. I feel that she deserved more than what was actually given to her. I know that she wasn’t even supposed to have what she got in the first place, but I felt as if it was still too little. She died young after much tragedy had befallen her, and it would’ve been nice to just give a speech in her name instead of Hamlet and Laertes fighting in her grave.

            If I were to give a speech at her funeral it would be about her life before the tragedy started, to emphasize the entirety of her life, and show people all of the positives. Just because her death was something negative (suicide) doesn’t mean that she lived a good life deserving of honors. The people in the play did a bad job of honoring her life, and I can understand why, but she just deserved more for someone of her character.