Ophelia a friend whom he trusted and she lied to him. After Hamlet storms out, Ophelia makes her "O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown" soliloquy. The next time Ophelia appears is at the "Mousetrap Play", which Hamlet has arranged to try to prove that Claudius killed King Hamlet. Hamlet sits with Ophelia and makes sexually suggestive remarks; he also says that woman's love is brief. Later that night, after the play, Hamlet kills Polonius during a private meeting between Hamlet and his mother, Queen Gertrude. At Ophelia's next appearance, after her father's death, she has gone mad, due to
The River Ophelia of the protagonist Justine, a university student in inner-city Sydney, and her relationship with the destructive Sade, a journalist for a rock magazine. The violent, depraved Sade regularly uses Justine for his own sexual exploits, and as she recognises this, goes on her own destructive pursuit for sexual fulfilment. Other characters, such as Hamlet, Ophelia, Simone and Marcelle appear later in the story. They regularly consume hard drugs, and are absorbed in a heavy capitalist culture with fluid, occasionally sexually violent open relationships. The only character who ostensibly seems to pursue love, or a healthy monogomous relationship, is Justine. Sade