 Making Polonius a co-conspirator, as revealed in the Closet Scene, strengthened Hamlet's motivation in rejecting his marriage to Ophélie.This crucial change facilitated the transformation of Shakespeare's Ophelia into the opera's Ophélie, a creature who dramatically is almost entirely drawn from the 19th-century, whose madness stems not from the actions of a man who creates an intolerable situation, but rather from a man whose withdrawal leaves an emptiness she is unable to fill.Musically, of course, the Mad Scene was one of those audience-pleasing creations which drew upon well-established operatic tradition.