Hamlet's Ophelia tragically falls victim to the prevalent and undisputed female stereotypes of her time. By trapping her in the type of the chaste and dutiful woman, Polonius strips Ophelia of her individual identity and silences her voice. He reduces her to a mere pawn, prostituting her to serve his own selfish purposes. It is only in madness that Ophelia is offered an unexpected respite by this puppet theater, a respite that even the finality of death cannot offer. When the reader first meets Ophelia within Hamlet, she is talking to Laertes, her brother, and Polonius, her brother. father. From these interactions, Ophelia appears to be the true embodiment of what a woman is expected to be. He listens respectfully to his brother and father, speaking only twenty-one lines instead of the one hundred and twenty combined. She dutifully responds to their advice: “I will preserve the effect of this good lesson” (1.3 l.49) and “I will obey, my lord” (1.4 l.145). Yet, apart from this obvious and somewhat boring image, the reader learns little about Ophelia. In response to the play's invitation to "Arise and open yourself" (1.1 l.2), Ophelia appears to have nothing to say. However, while Polonius is satisfied with this one-dimensional and limited image of his daughter, the reader is not supposed to be. According to the early 17th-century context of Shakespeare's Hamlet, "chastity was the quality most frequently praised in women" as it directly influenced and determined male honor. Therefore, Polonius' command to Ophelia to "slander no free moment to speak words or speak with the Lord Hamlet" (1.4 142-143) cannot be read simply as the words of a loving father concerned about the frailty of the son of his daughter. Heart. Rather, it must be... middle of paper... something more than the prodded words of a boy eager to demonstrate his manhood. King Claudius' response is no better, using Laertes' grief over Ophelia's death to motivate his revenge: “Strengthen your patience in our discourse last night… We will bring the matter to the present. This tomb will have a living monument... Until then our progress will be patient" (5,1 ll. 313-314; 317; 319). Thus, once again Ophelia emerges as the scapegoat: her death guilty of motivating the deaths of Hamlet, Laertes, Gertrude and Claudius. While Hamlet does indeed come to a tragic conclusion, it is a male-dominated ending. Fortinbras arrives on the scene in all his manhood, ordering Hamlet to be born “as a soldier on the stage,” restored to his former, healthy identity. Ophelia, however, goes unmentioned, faded from Denmark's memory, her "monument" never built as King Claudius promised.