Hamlet Tombstone Essay
In Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Ophelia intentionally kills herself. Once spiraling into depression, Ophelia quickly became unable to coherently understand those around her. In her final hours, Ophelia surrounded herself with the beauty of nature to comfort herself. Gertrude states, “Her clothes spread out wide in the water, and buoyed her up for a while as she sang bits of old hymns, acting like someone who doesn’t realize the danger she’s in, or like someone completely accustomed to danger” (4, 7, 170). This statement shows Ophelia’s candid assumption about death and her willingness to put herself in harm’s way. Gertrude explained to Laertes, “Climbing into the tree to hang the wreath
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These symbols, a wild wreath, and Rosemary were chosen because they represent her innocence and virtue. Gertrude states, “There’s a willow that leans over the brook, dangling its white leaves over the glassy water” (4, 7, 165). From this, it can be understood that Ophelia decided to surround herself with nature’s beauty. Gertrude explains to Laertes, “Ophelia made wild wreaths out of those leaves, braiding in crow-flowers, thistles, daisies, and the orchises that vulgar shepherds have an obscene name for, but which pure-minded girls call “dead men’s fingers”” (4, 7, 165). This tells us that the wild wreath and the willow tree were utilized in the description of Ophelia's death and held symbolic meaning to …show more content…
This quote comes from Ophelia during her time of ever increasing insanity. However, once examined, this statement makes an astonishing point. To me, this quote summarizes the sudden and unexpected changes in Ophelia’s life prior to her death. She became lost after the death of her father and confused by Hamlet’s intentions. Ophelia states, “And he’s made the holiest vows to me, to back up what he says” (1, 3, 110). From this, it can be understood that Ophelia thought Hamlet’s intentions were purely honest. In her own words, Ophelia symbolizes how drastically an event can alter a person’s life. Shakespeare did an outstanding job exercising the point that we’re all in control of our own destinies. Hamlet insults Ophelia, saying, “You shouldn’t have believed me, since we’re all rotten at the core, no matter how hard we try to be virtuous. I didn’t love you” (3, 1, 105). This statement contradicts whether or not Hamlet loved Ophelia in the first
Hamlet believes that he must have a false character, this will help him in his plan to kill the king. This sense of false character that Hamlet conveys, however, is a fatal flaw that would ultimately lead him to be a tragic hero. This false sense of character is later when realized when Ophelia exclaims, “Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced...with a look so piteous in purport/ As if he had been loosed out of hell”(2.1.80-85). Ophelia implies here that she cannot beleive the overall state of Hamlet, she believes that Hamlet no longer loves her.
Later in the play Ophelia is soon pronounced dead, when she is laid in the grave Laertes goes mad and climbs into the grave with her dead body. Then Hamlet jumps into the grave with him and they start fighting over her. Hamlet is getting attacked by laertes and proclaims “ I prithee take thy fingers from my throat;/ For though i am not splenitive and rash,/...Hold off thy hand.” (Act 5 Scene 1 lines 259, 260, 262). This symbolises how even when she is finally at peace she still has men trying to control
Throughout the play Hamlet, Ophelia is associated with floral imagery. Her father, Polonius presents her with a violet, she sings songs about flowers when she turns mad, she drowns amid garlands of flowers, and finally, at her burial, Queen Gertrude tosses flowers into her grave. Flowers symbolize her fragile beauty, blossoming sexuality, and a condemned innocence. Flowers are not deeply rooted. They are beautiful living things at the mercy of their surroundings. With no means of self-preservation, a flower's life relies on the natural forces around it. Ophelia's life mirrors this frail existence. She is entirely dependent upon the men in her life to make her choices. With no control over the storm brewing in her own life and no strength to withstand it, her shallow roots are ripped from under her. She loses her mind and takes her own young life.
The play states, “Ophelia: Good my lord,/ How does your Honor for this many a day?... Hamlet: To a nunnery, go.” ( Act3, Scene 1, Lines 99-162). This is where Hamlet calls Ophelia a liar and a cheat, he also mocks her dad by calling him a fool, and this is when he says he never loved her but he says it in the meanest way possible. His reasoning for calling Ophelia a liar and a cheat is because he is taking out his problems on her. Which is also why he says he does not love her anymore because he feels love does not exist due to what is happening to his mother. Although this may be his way to vent out his anger, it is wrong to do this to naive little Ophelia. A person who is not a jerk, would find a healthy way to release their anger, but since Hamlet is a jerk, he will take his anger out at someone else.
It is seen that women in the Elizabethan era do not have a much free will and the women depend on men for telling them how they should act. Hamlet reacts to Ophelia’s betrayal by mentioning that, “Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool, for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go, and quickly too. Farewell” (3.1.127-130). Ophelia is losing Hamlet’s trust due to her dependency on Polonius and Claudius when she shares Hamlet’s private love letters with Polonius and obeying his advice to stay away from Hamlet. Moreover, Ophelia even plays a part in the plan to test Hamlet to see if he is insane just because the king and her father ask her to, not caring how would Hamlet feel. Because of these reasons,Hamlet is telling Ophelia that nunnery is the only place where she will be faithful and cause the least amount of damage. This quote also conveys a theme of betrayal in the play, where Ophelia betrays her true love, Hamlet.Therefore, the attitude towards woman in the Elizabethan era is the reason why Ophelia betrays Hamlet . After her father’s death, Ophelia emotionally goes mad and sings, “He is dead and gone, lady, He is dead and gone. At his head is a patch of green grass, And at his feet there is a tombstone. Oh, ho!”(4.5.27-30). Ophelia goes mad because she realizes the double loss of
Yet to Hamlet, Ophelia is no better than another Gertrude: both are tender of heart but submissive to the will of importunate men, and so are forced into uncharacteristic vices. Both would be other than what they are, and both receive Hamlet’s exhortations to begin repentance by abstaining from pleasure. “Get thee to a nunnery”; “Assume a virtue if you have it not.” (9)
The name Ophelia has been most commonly associated with William Shakespeare's play, Hamlet, where she is referred to as the title character's mad lover. She is believed to have killed herself out of madness by drowning herself in a river. Interpretations about Ophelia's character have ranged from being a woman who lost her sanity upon her father, Polonius' death to being the object of hatred by Hamlet. However, despite her supporting character in the play, her personality has roused numerous criticisms and interpretations from philosophers and critics. This is probably due to the fact that her role in the play is more of a descriptive character rather than a speaking one. There are also various symbolisms towards the current society such as gender issues which her character represents. The character of Ophelia portrays relevant symbolisms to the feminine history which is continuously open to different interpretations from the sixteenth century up to this present day. Ophelia's character embodies the intrinsic sexual struggle that women in her time have commonly encountered.
This quote taken from Hamlet is the scene of Ophelia and her father , Polonius, talking about prince Hamlet. Ophelia rushes to talk to her father about how Prince Hamlet came to her looking distraught and heartbroken. As Polonius listens to his daughter, he starts to believe that Prince Hamlet is "Crazy in Love" with his daughter ever since she has distanced herself due to his orders. When Ophelia is done explaining prince Hamlets actions to her father, he apologizes to her and tells her that he only wanted the best for her.
In a world full of hopelessness and horror, Ophelia represents a diming beacon of hope in Hamlet’s life. It is clear from the beginning that Ophelia's love for Hamlet is real and reciprocated in strength. Even after Laertes and Polonius try and convince her that even if Hamlet’s feelings for her were real, things between them could never work out, Ophelia insists that he “hath given countenance to his speech, [...] with almost all the holy vows of heaven” (11). She is convinced that Hamlet’s love for her is so real his feelings couldn’t be faked. Reluctantly Ophelia agrees to call things off with Hamlet at her father’s request even if it means pretending she doesn’t love him. From the beginning Hamlet conveys his dismal attitude towards the world through his devaluation of life; but Ophelia’s presence represents a light in Hamlet’s never ending darkness.
When Gertrude tells the news of Ophelia’s death to everyone, she says, “Till that her garments, heavy with their drink, pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay to muddy death” (4.7.179-181). Gertrude describes Ophelia’s death as not her fault but her clothing for dragging her to drown. This is a metaphor for the way Ophelia lives her life since Polonius, Laertes, and Hamlet all drag her down and drown her in conflicts which she can’t handle. Ophelia is brave in the way that she acts rebelliously against the desires of others, even though she is aware that she is committing an act of sin. She is unlike Hamlet who is afraid of acting because he fears purgatory. Ophelia is a brave causality due to the desire of
The topic of Ophelia’s death, maybe as a result of Claudius and Polonius being consciously aware that they are being consciously aware of during Hamlet and Ophelia’s interchange, can be paralleled with Gertrude’s suicide with all of Hamlet’s male murderers, her relationship with Claudius, as with Hamlet himself and Ophelia, and the suspicious report of Ophelia’s drowning. Gertrude is innocent of claims that she is hastily marrying Claudius out of lust; “rather, the need to secure her roles as monarch, mother, and wife seems the primary catalyst in her decision”. (Loberg 63-64) Therefore, it can be inferred that Gertrude was the cause of Ophelia’s “drowning”, in order to keep the balance of power from becoming too unstable in Gertrude’s eyes, as Ophelia was somebody who presented instability in terms of her [Ophelia’s] relationships with Hamlet and the rest of the male
The theatrical elements that Shakespeare employs in act 5, scene 1 are outstanding, and serve to crease an ambiguous atmosphere surround the Ophelia’s death. This ambiguity is partially formulated by the Gravedigger’s play on words, in which he reopens death of Ophelia that the Queen portrayed as a “drowning,” as she fell into the water “mermaid-like… chanting snatches of old lauds As one incapable of her own distress” (4.7, 175-177), and turns it into an appalling transgression, marking her death as a suicide, contending that she “willfully seek[ed] her own salvation” (5.1, 274). The controversy that the Gravedigger brings up creates this problematic situation that gives Hamlet one of its unique characteristics; after all, Ophelia-the-suicide is much more complicated than an Ophelia of accidental death, especially because the corpse would be thrown into unhallowed ground with a steak through her heart. Furthermore, giving Ophelia’s death a suicidal natur...
Going into the story of Hamlet, suicide is something that has been thought about coming from the mind of Hamlet, but we also see it happen with Ophelia. Hamlet was a man who had some serious problems going on within the family, most importantly
Even when Ophelia died, a girl who had always looked up to Gertrude, she didn 't have much of a sentimental aspect. “There on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds clamb’ring to hang, an envious sliver broke, when down her weedy trophies and herself fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide, and mermaid-like awhile they bore her up, which time she chanted snatches of old tunes, as one incapable of her own distress, or like a creature native and indued unto that element” (4,7,187-195) This is the description Queen Gertrude gives to Laertes, Ophelia 's brother when she finds out about Ophelia 's death. It almost seems like she was describing the death of a character in a novel who she had no connection with. This makes me wonder if Gertrude witnessed Ophelia 's drowning causing her to be in shocked and show no emotion towards Ophelia 's death when she went to share out the news with Laertes. If she did witness Ophelia 's death, she probably kept it a secret since she wasn’t able to do anything to safe Ophelia’s life. A similar reaction to Ophelia 's death is seen through Polonius
After hearing this letter read aloud, both the king and queen are at least partially convinced that the denial of Hamlet’s love for Ophelia may be the impetus for his perceived insanity. Consequently, Polonius contrives a plan to send Ophelia out to speak with Hamlet while the king and him eavesdrop behind an arras to conclude whether Hamlet’s love for Ophelia is the true, deep-rooted cause of his madness. However, this hypothesis is quickly proven incorrect once the conversation between Hamlet and Ophelia commences. Ophelia reminds Hamlet of his professions of interest to her, but Hamlet simply states that he “did love [her] once,” but that she “should not have believed” him; Hamlet then brazenly declares, “I loved you not” (3.1.121,