Hamlet's Love For Ophelia

Love is an ambiguous feeling; it is often questionable to even those experiencing it whether it does or does not exist, and yet more difficult to analyze from a third perspective. The very definition of love is subjective but at its core it is a strong attraction towards someone that you care for deeply. Shakespeare explored some themes of love in the play Hamlet, such as the relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia. Hamlet originally did have a genuine love for Ophelia but it was lost in the midst of selfishness and revenge. The anger that Hamlet shows towards Ophelia throughout the play isn’t truly an anger for her but a bitter result of his anger for others. Because of his cowardice, he had difficulties confronting those that he’s actually …show more content…
While this is true during the timeline of the play, small key features reveal that Hamlet once had true love for Ophelia. Ophelia had told her father at the beginning of the play that Hamlet had made promises of his love to her. Given that they were both likely teenagers, it is possible that her immaturity skewed an insignificant relationship into an illusion of love but the fact that she was so passionate in telling her father that Hamlet “hath given countenance to his speech, my lord, with almost all the holy vows of heaven” (1.3.113-14) suggests that their relationship was genuine. Later, Hamlet’s argument with Laertes at Ophelia’s grave also outlined their former love. While his declaration that “forty thousand brothers could not with all their quantity of love make up [his] sum” (5.1.247-49) of love for Ophelia was at one point accurate, this didn’t reflect his feelings for her at the time. He simply used the passion that he once had to fuel his petty quarrel with Laertes. The use of past tense when he said he loved her wasn’t because of her passing but because that love was