Ophelia brothel. Polonius instructs Ophelia to stand in the lobby of the castle while he and Claudius hide. Hamlet approaches Ophelia and talks to her, saying "Get thee to a nunnery." Hamlet asks Ophelia where her father is and she lies to him, saying her father must be at home. Hamlet realises he is being spied upon. He exits after declaring, "I say we will have no more marriages." Ophelia is left bewildered and heartbroken, sure that Hamlet is insane. She knows that ultimately it is she that broke him because she lied. She was the woman he had loved and
Ophelia complex in her "Reviving Ophelia" of 1994. There she argued for a view of Shakespeare's character as lacking inner direction, and externally defined by men (father/ brother); and suggested that similar external pressures were currently faced by post-pubescent girls. The danger of the Ophelia syndrome was that of abandoning a rooted childhood self, for an apparently more sophisticated but over-externalised facade self. G. Bachelard, "L'Eau et les reves" (Paris 1942) 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