Length: 766 words (2.2 double-spaced pages)
Rating: Red (FREE)      
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Lonely Hamlet  

Hamlet’s decision to keep the murder of his father a secret to himself, along with the betrayals of many of his close friends and family, leads to his eventual downfall. If someone was there for him, whether it was his mother Gertrude, his girlfriend Ophelia, or Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, maybe his timeless death could have been prevented. Instead, his mother sides with Claudius who wants to kill him, Ophelia won’t go behind her father, Polonius’, back to be with him and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern go behind Hamlet’s back and spy on him for Claudius.

    Gertrude’s blindness to the whole situation is sickening. How she marries the brother of her former husband right after he kills him and never knows the truth is beyond me. She never cared about how her son felt before or after she married Claudius. She didn’t even wait very long after her husband died to get married again ( I; ii; 180-181. "Thrift, thrift, Horatio. The funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables".). Therefore she is either a very slow, naïve woman or a very evil, coldhearted one. For someone to side with a person even after their own son has told them that the person they’re with has murdered their former lover is absolute lunacy ( III; iv; 29-30. "A bloody deed- almost as bad, good mother, as kill a king, and marry his brother".). Not knowing the truth in the first place is one thing, but turning your back on your own flesh and blood is another. Therefore without his mother on his side, Hamlet has lost all the family in his life that could have helped him get through his terrible time and he sinks lower than ever before.

    Ophelia’s obedience towards her untrusting father is indescribable ( I; iii; 101-103. "Affection? Pooh! You speak like a green girl, unsifted in such perilous circumstance. Do you believe his tenders, as you call them"?). Why a grown woman would listen to her father and not help the man of her dreams in his time of need is disheartening. A man’s girlfriend should be there for him when a family member passes away, no matter what. If she had been with him on the plan to kill Claudius and knew about his fathers ghost who told Hamlet that Claudius was the one that murdered him, than neither one of them would have went crazy. Instead, because of listening to her untrusting father and not visiting Hamlet, Ophelia doesn’t get in on the plan and doesn’t see the method behind Hamlet’s madness, and because of this, she eventually kills herself ( IV; vii; 162. "Your sister’s drowned, Laertes".). Now Hamlet is left without his soul mate to turn to and sinks even lower into a crazy state of depression.

    Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are the worst possible friends in the world. Instead of helping out their friend Hamlet, they side with his archenemy Claudius ( II; ii; 1-4. " Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildeenstern. Moreover that we much did long to see you, the need we have to use you did provoke our hasty sending".). If they put their spying skills to use for Hamlet, things would have turned out differently. Claudius wouldn’t have gotten all the inside information that he received from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and Hamlet would be on the offensive with information of Claudius’ plans. This way, Claudius wouldn’t have been able to see through Hamlet’s madness so well and would have eventually led to the downfall of evil Claudius and not Hamlet ( III; i; 161. " Was not like madness. There’s something in his soul".). Instead Claudius is well aware of Hamlet’s plans and tries to send him to England to be killed. Luckily, Hamlet escapes from his English death sentence and returns to Denmark to revenge his father’s death, once and for all. However, it’s too late; for his madness has gone out of control, and with no reasoning behind it anymore, he dies along with Claudius.

    If someone would have been there for poor Hamlet, his downfall and eventual death could have been prevented. But with no one helping him on his plan, his isolation begins to make him believe that he is actually crazy and makes him more depressed. If someone would have been there to snap him out of his manic depression and insanity than all of this would never have happened. But Hamlet couldn’t find a friend, and his loneliness, more than anything else, killed him. If he just had someone to talk to, this tragedy would never have occurred.