Hamlet

ACT IV, Sc. 5, Lines 1-21: Infer the cause of Ophelia's madness and support your inferences with evidence from the play.

Queen. I will not speak with her.

Gentleman. She is importunate,

Indeed distract. Her mood will needs be pitied.

Queen. What would she have?

Gentleman. She speaks much of her father, says she hears

There's tricks i'th'world, and hems, and beats her heart;

Spurns enviously at straws; speaks things in doubt

That carry but half sense. Her speech is nothing,

Yet the unshaped use of it doth move

The hearers to collection. They aim at it,

And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts,

Which, as her winks and nods and gestures yield them,

Indeed would make one think there might be thought,

Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.

Horatio. 'Twere good she were spoken with, for she may

strew

Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.

Queen. Let her come in.

[Exit Gentleman]

[Aside] To my sick soul, as sin's ture nature is,

Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss.

So full of artless jealousy is guilt,

It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.

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From the lines above, we can infer that Ophelia's madness is a result of her father's death and the mystery surrounding it. Ophelia speak of her father and conspiracies, alluding to an unnatural death.... a murder. She knows something isn't right, she's stricken with grief, and beats her breast..... in anger? In sorrow?

She speaks much of her father, says she hears

There's tricks i'th'world, and hems, and beats her heart;

Spurns enviously at straws; speaks things in doubt

That carry but half sense. Her speech is nothing,

Yet the unshaped use of it doth move

The hearers to collection. They aim at it,

And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts,

Which, as her winks and nods and gestures yield them,

Indeed would make one think there might be thought,

Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.

Source(s)

Hamlet