Ophelia’s death

Did Ophelia commit suicide, or did she die by accident? “…There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds Clamb’ring to hang, an envious sliver broke, when down her weedy trophies and herself fell in the weeping brook… …Which time she chanted snatches of old lauds, As one incapable of her own distress…” (4.7.168-174). This is Gertrude’s basic account of Ophelia’s death. With this, we can either assume she made up the story to make Claudius and the others feel better, or that she is in fact telling the truth. Judging by the degree of the incident, I would assume that Gertrude’s good heart would ultimately want to make her tell the truth of Ophelia’s legacy. “I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet’s wife. I thought thy bride-bed to have decked, sweet maid, and not have strewed thy grave.”(5.1.214-216). We know from this that Gertrude was never against Hamlet and Ophelia’s relationship, and that she loved Ophelia. Judging by the fact that Gertrude is a kind woman, she would in fact want people to know the true account of Ophelia’s death. Some would argue about whether or not Gertrude is as pure and kind as she seems. It seems that before the play started, she quickly got over Hamlet’s death and moved on to marry Claudius. This is true; however, what are you to do in this situation? As queen, she has to move on, whether she likes it or not. Her attitude may seem apathetic, but she has to be strong and she has to move on. During that time, a war was going on, and Denmark couldn’t just stop being on guard and active because their old king had died. Gertrude mourned, but she had to keep up with Denmark. The sad truth is… Just because Hamlet is dead, mourning over him won’t help keep Denmark on its feet. With that, we can say that Gertrude’s account of Ophelia’s death was accurate. But, that doesn’t make her death an accident just yet. Ophelia was obviously delirious, and judging by her actions, she seemed to accidentally fall in. However, a common idea is that Ophelia was pregnant. History shows that back in Shakespearean times, women who found that they had become pregnant before marriage tended to drown themselves. However, Ophelia’s nature doesn’t seem to be that of a disobedient woman. When her father orders her to quit seeing Hamlet, she obeys his command – "I shall obey, my Lord" (1.3.136). Later, when Polonius uses her spy on Hamlet, she has no choice but to do as she's told. As long as she's unmarried, she must live by her father's rules, and she has. Her father, as any father would, probably advised her not to engage in sexual activities with Hamlet, especially since he never wanted Ophelia to be with Hamlet in the first place. Ophelia, being obedient, would have obviously refrained. Judging by when Laertes and Polonius confronted Ophelia, you would assume that Ophelia and Hamlet had not been together for too long; else “the talk” would have happened a lot earlier. The play takes place over a course of about 3 months, which would put Ophelia and Hamlet at anywhere from 4 to 5 months. Judging by this, signs of pregnancy would just be showing up IF they started their relationship with sex. In the time this play took place, most women and men didn’t even start sexual activity until after they were even married. Even if they didn’t abstain, you’d think they’d still wait a good month or two before doing something as drastic as that. That puts Ophelia in a situation where, judging by pregnancy, she wouldn’t really be able to see too much of a difference or know for sure if she was pregnant. All this evidence seems to lead to the conclusion that Ophelia was not pregnant when she drowned. With all of this information, you can assume that Ophelia did not, in fact, commit suicide. Ophelia was simply thrown into madness because the one she loved told her he never loved her, and then killed her father. She was too delirious to worry about the branch breaking; all she was driven by was honoring her father’s death.