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Ophelia (/ oʊ ˈ f iː l i ə /) is a character in William Shakespeare's drama Hamlet (1599–1601). She is a young noblewoman of Denmark, the daughter of Polonius, sister of Laertes and potential wife of Prince Hamlet. Due to Hamlet's actions, Ophelia ultimately enters into a state of madness that leads to her drowning.
Polonius forces Ophelia to return Hamlet's love letters to the prince while he and Claudius secretly watch in order to evaluate Hamlet's reaction. Hamlet is walking alone in the hall as the King and Polonius await Ophelia's entrance. Hamlet muses on thoughts of life versus death. When Ophelia enters and tries to return Hamlet's things, Hamlet ...
Laertes / l eɪ ˈ ɜːr t iː z / is a character in William Shakespeare's play Hamlet.Laertes is Polonius' son and Ophelia's brother. In the final scene, he mortally stabs Hamlet with a poison-tipped sword to avenge the deaths of his father and sister, for which he blamed Hamlet.
In Act III, Hamlet seems to drop the pretense of friendship, coldly dismissing the two in Scene 2. Line 319 is perhaps his only use of the royal "we" in the play, although he may also be addressing the other person present on the stage, Horatio, with whom Hamlet first saw the ghost they are discussing. To his mother, he comments in Scene 4 that ...
Gertrude reports that Ophelia has died. In the Elsinore churchyard, two "clowns", typically represented as gravediggers, enter to prepare Ophelia's grave. Hamlet arrives with Horatio and banters with one of them, who unearths the skull of a jester whom Hamlet once knew, Yorick. Ophelia's funeral procession approaches, led by Laertes.
The next two scenes at court are from the plot of Hamlet. The first, involving Hamlet and Ophelia, takes place offstage in Hamlet—the stage directions repeat exactly the words with which Ophelia describes the event to Polonius in Hamlet. The second is taken directly from Hamlet: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's first appearance in that play ...
The Gravediggers (or Clowns) are examples of Shakespearean fools (also known as clowns or jesters), a recurring type of character in Shakespeare's plays. Like most Shakespearean fools, the Gravediggers are peasants or commoners that use their great wit and intellect to get the better of their superiors, other people of higher social status, and each other.
In the final scene, Gertrude notices Hamlet is tired during the fight with Laertes, and offers to wipe his brow. She drinks a cup of poison intended for Hamlet by the King, against the King's wishes, and dies, shouting in agony as she falls: "No, no, the drink,—O my dear Hamlet—The drink, the drink! I am poison'd." [3]