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
Ophelia complex Ophelia complex Ophelia complex is the term used by Gaston Bachelard to refer to the links between femininity, liquids, and drowning which he saw as symbolised in the fate of Shakespeare's Ophelia. Bachelard traced in Romanticism a nexus of ideas linking the dissolution of the self - male or female - with immersion in the feminine element of water, as symbolised by Ophelia's drowning. Federico García Lorca explored the image of water and a despairing sexuality, epitomised in the Ophelia complex, throughout his writings. A later, and unconnected use of the terms Ophelia complex/Ophelia syndrome was introduced by Mary Pipher