Blue rose

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Farewell my blue rose, I always will miss you
Even though I never touched you
I never could resist you

To outside observers, Ophelia is the epitome of goodness. Like Gertrude, young Ophelia is childlike and naive. But unlike Queen Gertrude, Ophelia has good reason to be unaware of the harsh realities of life. She is very young, and has lost her mother. Her father, Polonius, and brother, Laertes, love Ophelia tremendously, and have taken great pains to shelter her. She is not involved with matters of state; she spends her days engaged in needlepoint and flower gathering. She returns the love shown to her by Polonius and Laertes tenfold, and couples it with complete and unwavering loyalty. "Her whole character is that of simple unselfish affection" (Bradley 130).

Even though her love for Hamlet is strong, she obeys her father when he tells her not to see Hamlet again or accept any letters that Hamlet writes. Her heart is pure, and when she does do something dishonest, such as tell Hamlet that her father has gone home when he is really behind the curtain, it is out of genuine fear.

Ophelia clings to the memory of Hamlet treating her with respect and tenderness, and she defends him and loves him to the very end despite his brutality. She is incapable of defending herself, but through her timid responses we see clearly her intense suffering:

Hamlet: ...I did love you once.
Ophelia: Indeed, my, lord, you made me believe so.
Hamlet: You should not have believed me...I loved you not.
Ophelia: I was the more deceived.

Her frailty and innocence work against her as she cannot cope with the unfolding of one traumatic event after another. Ophelia's darling Hamlet causes all her emotional pain throughout the play, and when his hate is responsible for her father's death, she has endured all that she is capable of enduring and goes insane. But even in her insanity she symbolizes, to everyone but Hamlet, incorruption and virtue. "In her wanderings we hear from time to time an undertone of the deepest sorrow, but never the agonized cry of fear or horror which makes madness dreadful or shocking. And the picture of her death, if our eyes grow dim in watching it, is still purely beautiful". (Bradley, Shakespearean Tragedy 132-3). The bawdy songs that she sings in front of Laertes, Gertrude, and Claudius are somber reminders that the corrupt world has taken its toll on the pure Ophelia.

The castle referred to in Shakespeare's play is Kronborg Castle in Helsinger (Elsinore). Translated to English, the word "Kronborg" literally means "Crown Fortress".  Denmark uses "crowns" for money. 

Ophelia possibly drowned in the Polea River.  She wore long dresses, and, having fallen into the water, was trapped by the adhesive bond between water and natural fibers. She could not save herself.  At that point she was miserable and she gave up on living.  Rather than waste her remaining strength struggling to hold onto a life that felt too unbearable to live, she submitted herself to death and sang to help keep her courage and express her feelings through her last moments alive.

She was not mad in the sense of being socially destructive, but rather destroyed by the very feelings of devotion that endeared her to her brother and father. Hamlet destroyed the one woman most devoted to his happiness.