If this had not been a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o' Christian burial.
Act V, Scene 1
Context
The Second Clown bluntly tells his companion that Ophelia is only receiving Christian burial rites because of her noble status, implying the coroner bent the rules for her.
Analysis
The conditional structure 'If this had not been... she should have been' creates a counterfactual that strips away Ophelia's identity to reveal the class calculus underneath. The phrase 'out o' Christian burial' becomes a spatial metaphor—nobility keeps you inside sacred ground, poverty leaves you outside—turning theology into a question of real estate. The gravedigger states this not as scandal but as obvious fact, his matter-of-fact tone making the corruption feel routine rather than exceptional.
Essay Tip
Support a thesis that the play's minor characters speak uncomfortable truths the court avoids—this quote shows a laborer casually naming the class privilege that determines even one's treatment in death, a critique Hamlet himself only approaches through philosophical abstraction.