Ophelia what the other characters interpret as grief for her father. She talks in riddles and rhymes, and sings some "mad" and bawdy songs about death and a maiden losing her virginity. She exits after bidding everyone a "good night". The last time Ophelia appears in the play is after Laertes comes to the castle to challenge Claudius over the death of his father, Polonius. Ophelia sings more songs and hands out flowers, citing their symbolic meanings, although interpretations of the meanings differ. The only herb that Shakespeare gives Ophelia herself is rue; "...there's rue for you, and here's some for
Literary influence of Hamlet introducing Maggie Tulliver "who is explicitly compared with Hamlet". Scholar Marianne Novy suggests that Eliot "demythologises Hamlet by imagining him with a reputation for sanity", notwithstanding his frequent monologues and moodiness towards Ophelia. Novy also suggests Mary Wollstonecraft as an influence on Eliot, critiquing "the trivialisation of women in contemporary society". "Hamlet" has played "a relatively small role" in the appropriation of Shakespeare's plays by women writers, ranging from "Ophelia, The Fair Rose of Elsinore" in Mary Cowden Clarke's 1852 "The Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines", to Margaret Atwood's 1994 "Gertrude Talks Back"—in her 1994 collection of short stories "Good Bones