What's the point of Ophelia or Horatio?

[emily08]

In a novel or play, a confidant (male) or confidante (female) is a character, often a friend or relative of the hero or heroine, whose role is to be present when the hero or heroine needs a sympathetic listener to confide in. Frequently the result is, as Henry James remarked, that the confidant can be as much “the reader’s friend as the protagonist’s...” However, the author sometimes uses this character for other purposes as well. In your essay, choose a confidant and discuss the various ways this character functions in the work and affects the meaning of the work as a whole.- horatio? Ophelia?

[Kent Edwins]

I think that Horatio is more of a confidant than Ophelia a confidanta. Hamlet actually confides in Horatio, not so much in Ophelia who actually tries. Perhaps that's a contrast you might find it helpful to focus on?

[huntress4eva]

I think ophiela role is used to emphasis the whole hamlets freined madness. The whole purpoise of her was to emphasis the point like love can cause madness the way Hamlet was playing to it but in Ophelias case it actually caused real madness.

[Virgil]

In addition to the mechanics of moving the play along (as mentioned such as confidant) they serve as contrasting characters to Hamlet.