Hamlet

Can utter sanity come from insanity? Ophelia's insanity seems to grant her some sort of wisdom, according to her brother:


OPHELIA
140
(sings)

They bore him barefaced on the bier,

Hey, non nonny, nonny, hey, nonny,

And in his grave rained many a tear.

Fare you well, my dove.


LAERTES

Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge,

It could not move thus.

And later on in the text, she starts discussing flowers and "giving" them to King Claudius and Gertrude. The irony is that the flowers she gives are symbols of infidelity, adultery, and repentance. She later says she would have given violets- they symbolize faithfulness- but they dried up when her father died, a foreshadowing of sorts. I found this passage to be enchanting, and of course, a type of beauty that only Shakespeare could accomplish.

I found this video to be a good summary of what Ophelia is going through in her insanity.