Ophelia is only one of two female characters in Shakespeare's Hamlet, and seen by modern audiences, she is seen as shy, gentle, innocent, and submissive to the men who 'surround. To the audience at the time of the play, she would have been seen in a different light, as these traits would have made her an ideal woman. To try to understand the character of Ophelia, one simply has to flip through the pages of the play, study the few scenes of dialogue she has, and examine her language, or lack thereof. Considering the person(s) she is responding to, the context of the dialogue, and her specific word choice play a key role in analyzing her voice. A good starting point for examining Ophelia's submission is during Act 3, scene 1, where Claudius and Polonius decide to use Ophelia as bait for Hamlet. Ophelia is present throughout the discussion dealing with the questioning of Hamlet's madness and only speaks once in this entire sequence. “Madam, I wish so” (3.1.43), is Ophelia's response to Gertrude's wish that this plot clarify Hamlet's behavior. The answer is short, precise and full of respect. What makes this stand out even more is that she addresses Gertrude correctly. Even though Gertrude is not a masculine figure, Ophelia still recognizes Gertrude's superiority in responding by calling her Madam. In the following sequences, we continue to see Ophelia address her superiors, namely Hamlet, in this manner. Ophelia speaks eleven times during her exchange with Hamlet and of those eleven times, there are only three instances where she does not respond by addressing Hamlet as "my lord" or "lordship". The additional use of "wish" gives the idea that Ophelia might actually be a bit... middle of paper ... featured here. Whereas Ophelia has very few lines and most of them are just a few lines. short words that are far from interesting and are not what we usually call Shakespearean. However, they are actually special to her. It is through this specific use of language that we are able to gain insight into Ophelia that reinforces what the other characters project onto her, especially if we take the time to watch her moment of introspection. We can see her innocence and sweetness in her responses and even when we finally see what Ophelia is really thinking, it actually only reinforces what we have already learned; that she is an unpretentious character. Works Cited Shakespeare, William. Literature “The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark”: an introduction to reading and writing. Ed. Edgar V. Roberts. 9th ed. New York: Pearson Longman, 2009. Print