Essay on the Manipulation of Polonius and Ophelia in Hamlet

998 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Analyze Hamlet's treatment of ophelia

The Manipulation of Polonius and Ophelia in Hamlet The main plot of Shakespeare's Hamlet centers around Prince Hamlet's desire to repay King Claudius for his evil deeds. Around this central action revolve the stories concerning the minor characters of Polonius and Ophelia. Though they do not motivate Hamlet's actions towards the King, these characters act as forces upon Hamlet himself, trying to spur him to do things he does not want to do. Both Polonius and Ophelia try, unsuccessfully, to manipulate Hamlet into a place of inferiority. In the first scene of Act II, Polonius and Ophelia discuss the meaning of Hamlet's odd behavior. Though the two characters agree his actions arise out of the torment of spurned love, they arrive at that point through very different means. At the beginning of the dialogue, Ophelia says that she has been "affrighted" by Hamlet in her bed chamber. (II,i 75) Her encounter with the Prince left her scared about his real intentions. She says that he looks like he has been,"loosed out of hell/To speak of horrors". (II,i 83-4) The very fact that Hamlet does not speak one word to Ophelia makes him look even more intimidating. By not speaking anything, Hamlet at once strengthens his image as a madman, as well as shrouding his real intentions towards those around him. Just following this passage comes a place in the text where we can see how the character of Ophelia has been manipulated by Polonius. After his "hint" that he might be doing this out of frustrated love, Ophelia says that that is what she truly does fear. (87) Her feelings of pity and concern are shaped by her father in order to fit his case of madness against Hamlet. To further strengthen this situation, Polonius'... ... middle of paper ... ...f the situation before he enters it, while Polonius and Ophelia must try to understand events as, or after they happen. Works Cited Bradley, A.C. "Shakespeare's Tragic Period--Hamlet." Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth. Toronto: MacMillan, 1967. 79-174. Campbell, Lily B. Collected Papers Of Lily Campbell. NY: Russell, 1968. Lidz, Theodore. Hamlet's Enemy: Madness and Myth in Hamlet. Vision Press, 1975. MacKenzie, Agnes Mure. The Women in Shakespeare's Plays. London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1924. Northrop, Frye. "Hamlet." Northrop Frye on Shakespeare. Ed. Robert Sandler. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986. 82-100. Oakes, Elizabeth. "Polonius, the Man behind the Arras: A Jungian Study." New Essays on Hamlet. Ed. Mark Thornton Burnett and John Manning. NY: AMS Press, 1994. 103-112.

Show More
Related

  • Custom Shakespeare's Hamlet Essay: Hamlet and Gertrude

    1925 Words  | 4 Pages

    Jorgensen, Paul A. “Hamlet.” William Shakespeare: the Tragedies. Boston: Twayne Publ., 1985. N. pag. http://www.freehomepages.com/hamlet/other/jorg-hamlet.html

    Read More

  • Comparison of The Great Gatsby and A Streetcar Named Desire

    1095 Words  | 3 Pages

    Hamlet (The New Folger Library Shakespeare). Simon & Schuster; New Folger Edition, 2003.

    Read More

  • Foils as Reflections of Hamlet

    1055 Words  | 3 Pages

    Manning, John. "Symbola and Emblemata in Hamlet." New Essays on Hamlet. Ed. Mark Thornton Burnett and John Manning. New York: AMS Press, 1994. 11-18.

    Read More

  • Comparison Between Mount Bona And Mount Churchill

    360 Words  | 1 Pages

    Mount Bona and Mount Churchill is one of the greatest mountains in Alaska. Also it is the fifth highest independent peak in the United States. The eruption occurred around 800 AD in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park Alaska, U.S. This two volcanoes is more than 15,000 feet high, and permanently covered with ice and snow. Also 1250 years ago, Mount Churchill erupted which blew the lid off the mountain, and carried the ash into the southwest Yukon. It called White River Ash, and it covers almost 600,000 square kilometers in Alaska, the Yukon, and the Northwest Territories. If you was closer to the volcano you will be dead because the ash can be 60cm thick. This is very dangerous. Do you know that Mount Bona named by Prince Luigi Amedeo, Duke of the Abruzzi in 1897.

    Read More

  • Essay on the Oppression of Ophelia in Hamlet

    1249 Words  | 3 Pages

    In The Tragedy of Hamlet, Shakespeare developed the story of prince Hamlet, and the murder of his father by the king's brother, Claudius. Hamlet reacted to this event with an internal battle that harmed everyone around him. Ophelia was the character most greatly impacted by Hamlet's feigned and real madness - she first lost her father, her sanity, and then her life. Ophelia, obedient, weak-willed, and no feminist role model, deserves the most pity of any character in the play.

    Read More

  • Mauna Loa Research Paper

    405 Words  | 1 Pages

    Mauna Loa is a shield volcano. Mauna Loa, “is a gently sloping mountain produced from a large number of generally very fluid lava flows” (Mauna Loa Volcano). Also an elevation map can show how high and wide the volcano is. According to Britannica, Mauna Loa is 64 miles (103 km) wide. As a result, this can be seen on an elevation map because, one can see how far it goes down. Mauna Loa is the largest gently sloping mountain in the world.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Landforms And Mauna Loa

    1639 Words  | 4 Pages

    Mauna Loa is the largest volcano in the world measuring 2,000 miles². Mauna Loa is 13,677 feet tall, 74 miles long, and 64 wide. On March 24, 1984, at 1:30 in the morning, Mauna Loa began to erupt. This eruption is known as a quiet eruption. The eruption does not cause the volcano to explode or make much of a loud noise. This is due to the basaltic lava and a low amount trapped gases. It just flows a low viscosity lava out of the volcano. When the eruption started, lava started pooling out of the top of Mauna Loa. Within 2-3 hours about 80% of the crater on top of the volcano was submerged in lava. Many worried that the lava would overflow and run to the Mauna Loa Observatory, but the eruption shifted to go northeast rift zone instead. This instead threatened the nearby city of Hilo, populating 40,000 people. The lava headed straight for the town. On the way, the lava reached a generator and left it destroyed. This took out the power for the observatory on the other side of the volcano. This lava that Mauna Loa erupted is a basaltic lava. Basaltic lava silica content is low and only contains 45-55% silica. This makes the magma more liquid and gives it the ability to move quickly. As the lava approaches the vulnerable city of Hilo, many of the people began evacuating. Luckily, the lava stopped at the outskirts of town, burying 16 miles of land owned by the state, never to be seen again. The

    Read More

  • Aphasic Patient Communication Analysis

    4335 Words  | 9 Pages

    Aphasic patients have something to say, and it?s time they were heard. Imagine one day you are sick and because of your illness and you can no longer express your thoughts. Normal words that you once knew are suddenly out of reach, or you feel as if you are speaking correctly yet no one understands. What do you do? Where do you go for help, and how will you communicate again? These are the concerns of an aphasic patient, and these are the problems we need to address when achieving patient

    Read More

  • Contrasting Fortinbras and Laertes with Hamlet

    1951 Words  | 4 Pages

    Mack, Maynard. "The World of Hamlet." Yale Review. vol. 41 (1952) p. 502-23. Rpt. in Shakespeare: Modern Essays in Criticism. Rev. ed. Ed. Leonard F. Dean. New York: Oxford University P., 1967.

    Read More

  • Madness and Insanity in Shakespeare's Hamlet

    963 Words  | 2 Pages

    Mack, Maynard. "The World of Hamlet." Yale Review. vol. 41 (1952) p. 502-23. Rpt. in Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1996.

    Read More

  • King Hamlet's Ambiguous Ghost

    2020 Words  | 5 Pages

    Shakespeare, William. "Hamlet." The Norton Introduction to Literature. Eds. Alison Booth, and Kelly J. Mays. Tenth. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 2011. 1024-1129. Print.

    Read More

  • Analyzing the Works of Thomas Hardy

    1090 Words  | 3 Pages

    One major problem with regional discussions of Hardy is that their vision and perception of Hardy’s work is very narrow in the sense that (1) they are almost restricted to what Hardy calls ‘novels of character and environment’, and (2) they ignore other important thematic concepts within the texts. Equally important, such reviews are always based on some biographical elements of Hardy himself. The involvement of biographical considerations however in thematic reviews makes any discussion subjective and not empirical.

    Read More

  • A Comparison of the Revenge of Fortinbras and Hamlet

    908 Words  | 2 Pages

    Shakespeare, William, Marilyn Eisenstat, and Ken Roy. Hamlet. 2nd ed. Toronto: Harcourt Canada, 2003. Print.

    Read More

  • Characteristics of The Harlem Renaissance in the Works of Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, and Claude McKay

    1067 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Harlem Renaissance took place between 1919 and 1935; it was a movement that included literary arts, specifically the portrayal of black life from a realistic view; it is known as one of the most influential movements as it was the development of the African American culture (Hutchinson 1). In the renaissance blacks essentially made a new identity for themselves; known as the “new negro”, this included no longer allowing whites to treat them as if they were not humans; additionally they would breakdown the stereotypes of blacks and not let whites dictate them because of their color, past, or financial status (Morgan 214). The Harlem Renaissance is fundamentally a group of black literati, such as writers, poets, etc. that got together and decided to change the perception of blacks amongst whites in order to prove to whites that blacks could be just as capable as them in life. Some of the writers involved in the renaissance were poets, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, and Claude McKay; in these poets works there are distinctive characteristics of the Harlem Renaissance that are present. The main characteristics that all three writers include in their works is social activism

    Read More

  • Gertrude and Ophelia

    1004 Words  | 3 Pages

    He is essentially telling Ophelia how she should be behaving and reacting to her own situations. This is portraying her as a woman who cannot think for herself and is dependant on Polonius. In addition, Polonius’ death is the trigger to Ophelia’s insanity, because she depended upon him a great deal. When Ophelia is told by Polonius to never contact Hamlet again, she obeys Polonius, but Hamlet acts crazy in reaction to her denial. Ophelia says, “No, my good lord; but, as you did command, / I did repel his letters and denied / His actions to me.” (2.1.109-111) By doing everything Polonius tell her to do, she makes matters for herself worse. Ophelia cannot stand up for her...

    Read More

More about Essay on the Manipulation of Polonius and Ophelia in Hamlet

Open Document