Ophelia's Role in William Shakespeare's Hamlet.

This essay is more abstract than the average character analysis, it probably wouldn't fly in most classrooms. But I wrote this for an Advanced Placement Language and Composition class and that of course was what the prof was looking for, the language; it has its good points. "O rose of May! Sweet Ophelia!" As Sweet Ophelia indeed she is; a mere wisp of a girl, an apparition, a reflection, a waif, a dream, a dream, …

…ther, Ophelia is chained and crippled; and afterwards, her madness enables her to speak the truth, or something like it, in riddles. Thusly proving, that the young maid, sister to Laertes, daughter to Polonius, lover to the fair and bothered Hamlet; is an important and complex character, with thoughts and emotions independent of the whims and fancies of the men in her life. Feeble, she still was. No amount of addled speech could redeem that.