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How does Claudius treat Ophelia in Hamlet?
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Claudius treats Ophelia with indifference and manipulation in Hamlet. He uses her as a pawn in his schemes to uncover Hamlet's motives, showing little genuine concern for her well-being. When Ophelia descends into madness after her father's death, Claudius is dismissive and primarily concerned with his own safety. Even after her death, his actions are self-serving, intervening with the church for her burial possibly out of guilt or political convenience.
In Shakespeare's Hamlet, Claudius and Ophelia appear in four scenes together.
In their first scene together, act 3, scene 1, they share no dialogue. Polonius does most of the talking, as usual, and he arranges for Ophelia to walk around a room in the castle reading a book so that she can engage Hamlet in conversation while Polonius and Claudius eavesdrop on them.
The conversation between Hamlet and Ophelia doesn't go well—"Get thee to a nunnery" and other words to that effect are spoken—and Ophelia leaves the stage in tears.
Other than eavesdropping on Hamlet and Ophelia's conversation, Claudius doesn't interfere in their relationship and says nothing to either one of them about it. Ophelia clearly poses no threat to Claudius, so there's no reason for him to fear her or her relationship with Hamlet.
In act 3, scene 2, the "play-within-a-play" scene, Claudius and Ophelia again have nothing...
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to say to each other.
This scene doesn't end very well either—at least for Claudius. Ophelia exits the scene after Claudius calls off the show and walks out in a huff, having just witnessed an on-stage re-creation of his murder of Hamlet's father.
By the time Claudius and Ophelia next appear onstage together, in act 4, scene 5, Ophelia has pretty well gone mad, and she's singing and dancing around the stage, talking nonsense, and otherwise upsetting everyone.
Claudius and Ophelia have their only exchange of lines in this scene.
CLAUDIUS. How do you, pretty lady?
OPHELIA. Well, God 'eild you! They say the owl was a baker's daughter.
Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be.
God be at your table! (4.5.46-50)
A few lines later, Claudius tries to get her attention—"Pretty Ophelia!" (5.4.62)—but she ignores him and sings another verse of "Tomorrow is Saint Valentine's Day."
Nevertheless, Claudius seems cordial to Ophelia and she to him (in a mad sort of way), and later in the scene, Claudius expresses at length what seems to be sincere concern for Ophelia.
CLAUDIUS. Follow her close; give her good watch, I pray you.
O, this is the poison of deep grief; it springs
All from her father's death. O Gertrude, Gertrude,
When sorrows come, they come not single spies.(80)
But in battalions! First, her father slain;
Next, your son gone, and he most violent author
Of his own just remove; the people muddied,
Thick and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers,
For good Polonius' death, and we have done but greenly,(85)
In hugger-mugger to inter him; poor Ophelia
Divided from herself and her fair judgment,
Without the which we are pictures, or mere beasts;
Last, and as much containing as all these,
Her brother is in secret come from France... (4.5.77-90)
That scene doesn't end well, either. Ophelia's brother, Laertes, storms into the castle, and into the room with Claudius and Gertrude, demanding to know who killed his father, Polonius.
In the midst of Claudius trying to explain Polonius's death to Laertes in a way that Claudius can stay alive, Ophelia returns. She seems not to recognize her own brother and sings and dances around the room some more, handing out flowers to Claudius, Gertrude, and Laertes. She dances offstage and presumably goes to take a walk in the woods to clear her head.
When Gertrude interrupts Claudius and Laertes, who are plotting against Hamlet, to tell them that Ophelia has apparently drowned herself, Claudius says nothing about it. He might be wondering how Gertrude seems to know so much about where and how Ophelia drowned, even down to the kinds of flowers that were in the garland that Ophelia was carrying when she supposedly fell into "the weeping brook" (4.7.190).
In their final scene together, Claudius and Ophelia once again have nothing to say to each other, mostly because Ophelia is dead, having purportedly drowned herself, as recently reported by Gertrude to Claudius and Laertes.
To his credit, in a final kind gesture towards Ophelia, Claudius intervened with the local church leaders on Ophelia's behalf to afford Ophelia "a Christian Burial."
PRIEST. (to Laertes) ... Her death was doubtful;
And, but that great command o'ersways the order, [Claudius ordered that Ophelia be buried in sacred church ground]
She should in ground unsanctified have lodged
Till the last trumpet. (5.1.220-223)
Perhaps Claudius was feeling guilty for some reason for Ophelia's death, or perhaps it was simply a thoughtful thing for a smiling, damned, bloody, bawdy, remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, incestuous, murderous villain to do.
Claudius ignores Ophelia for much of her existence except when he needs to use her in a plan to discover the cause of Hamlet's supposed lunacy. Claudius and Polonius use her as a pawn to decide if Hamlet is is crazy because Ophelia has denied his amorous advances.
Claudius curtly asks, "But how hath she received his love?" (II,ii,137) and has only the mildest interest in Polonius' answer before agreeing to spy on their interactions. He later concludes that that Polonius is incorrect:
Love? His affections do not that way tend;
Nor what he spake, though it lacked form a little,
Was not like madness (III,i,176-178).
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