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Hamlet characters and madness
Hamlet (appearance and reality)
Hamlet (appearance and reality)
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Polonius' Observations on Hamlet's Madness
The obedient Ophelia has followed her father's injunctions and repelled Hamlets letters and denied him access to her. Polonius is certain that these rebuffs have driven Hamlet mad. His only action is to inform the king and queen, and to let them decide what the next move will be. In Polonius lengthy discussion with the king and queen he explain the situation:
Polonius: Your noble son is mad.
Mad call I it; for, to define true madness,
What is't but to be nothing else but mad?
One of the most analyzed plays in existence today is the tragedy Hamlet, with its recurring question: "Is Hamlet's 'antic disposition' feigned or real?" This question can only be answered by observing the thoughts of the main characters in relation to the cause of Hamlet's real or feigned madness. In the tragedy Hamlet, each of the main characters explains Hamlets madness in their own unique way. To discover the cause behind the madness of Hamlet, each character used their own ambitions, emotions and interpretations of past events. Initially one of the most accepted causes for Hamlets instability is that of denied love, conjured by the self fulfilling Polonius.
In the very first scene of the second act, Ophelia rushes to tell her father, Polonius, disturbing news:
Ophelia: My lord, as I was sewing in my closet,
Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbrac'd,
No hat upon his head, his stockings foul'd,
Ungart'red, and down-gyved to his ankle;
Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other,
And with a look so piteous in purport
As if he had been loosed out of hell
To speak of horrors- he comes before me.
Polonius: Mad for thy love?
Ophelia: My lord, I do not know, But truly I do fear it.
(Act II scene I)
It is interesting to note that Ophelia does not tell her father that Hamlet is mad because of Ophelia denied love, but that Polonius automatically assumes this.
Polonius: This is the very ecstasy of love,
Whose violent property fordoes itself
And leads the will to desperate undertakings
As oft as any passion under heaven
That does afflict our natures.
What, have you given him any hard words of late?
Ophelia: No, my good lord; but, as you did command,
I did repel his letters and denied
In addition, Hamlet’s feigned insanity fooled Polonius into believing that he was simply mad with love for Ophelia. Because Polonius was the king’s advisor, he was greatly trusted by King Claudius. After Polonius reads Hamlet’s love letter, the king and queen begin to believe what Polonius is saying about Hamlet just being madly in love. “Do you think ‘tis this?” asked King Claudius.
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The subtitle of the novel, however an after idea, focuses on the basic virtue of its champion. In spite of the fact that she is fallen, she is to be judged not by her ethical inconvenience but rather by her goal, her life and her temperament seen all in all. One side of Tess is the question of male strength, run of the mill of the Victorian time frame, the respectably traditional and preservationist age. At the time of Tess, even in late Victorian period, a lady ought to be rationally and physically devoted to men, called a "blessed messenger in the house." Else she was a "fallen heavenly attendant." Tessʼs dispositions as a Victorian lady are spoken to in her externalization by her honest to goodness spouse Holy messenger, and her physical
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.
Jay Gatsby is one of the most interesting and memorable characters in this novel. Born as James Gatz to poor farmers in North Dakota, he decided at an early age that he wanted more out of life than North Dakota could offer. Gatsby comes to the East Coast after the war and makes a fortune in bootlegging and other questionable business activities due to the help of characters such as Meyer Wolfsheim. He buys a mansion on West Egg, in order to be directly across the bay from Daisy Buchanan. He gives his wild, extravagant parties and drives his flashy automobiles in hopes of attracting Daisy's attention. She becomes his reason for being and Gatsby never loses sight of his dream and often reaches out to the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. After Nick arranges for Daisy and Gatsby to meet again, the two become close again. Gatsby believes that she loves him as much as he loves her and that she is going to leave Tom and be with him. Gatsby is murdered by George Wilson, who believes that Gatsby murdered his wife, Myrtle Wilson.
As the play opened, Hamlet and Ophelia appeared as lovers experiencing a time of turbulence. Hamlet had just returned home from his schooling in Saxony to find that his mother had quickly remarried her dead husband's brother, and this gravely upset him. Hamlet was sincerely devoted to the idea of bloodline loyalty and sought revenge upon learning that Claudius had killed his father. Ophelia, though it seems her relationship with Hamlet is in either the developmental stage or the finalizing stage, became the prime choice as a lure for Hamlet. Laertes inadvertently opened Ophelia up to this role when he spoke with Ophelia about Hamlet before leaving for France. He allowed Polonius to find out about Hamlet's courtship of Ophelia, which led to Polonius' misguided attempts at taking care of Ophelia and obeying the king's command to find the root of Hamlet's problems. Ophelia, placed in the middle against her wishes, obeyed her father and brother's commands with little disagreement. The only time she argued was when Laertes advised her against making decisions incompatible with the expectations of Elizabethan women. Ophelia tells him, in her boldest lines of the play:
The Crucible written by Arthur Miller is about The Witch Trials in Salem, Massachusetts in the 1600’s. The town was placed in hysteria by some of the town girls such as, Abigail, Tituba, and Mary Warren. Certain events in the story led to the widespread of hysteria amongst the town. First, when Abigail pointed her finger to blame Tituba. Second, names of people were mentioned and other events made the town think that the Devil was taking over.
Leaving her only with the response saying “I shall obey, my lord”(1.3.145 ). Why Ophelia is unable to say more than a few simple words is made clear by societal expectations of the time. During this time daughters were the property of their fathers and were obligated to do their bidding. Campbell says “if she refuses Polonius, she risks social ostracism and grave insult to the man who capriciously controls her future” (58). Ophelia fears the backlash of disobeying her father, believing there is no other choice than doing what he has asked her to do. Even though a woman's virtue is a sacred and a very personal choice, her father leaves Ophelia with one option: to do what he says. “The issue of Ophelia’s chastity concerns Polonius as a parent and a politician—a virginal Ophelia has a better chance of attaining Hamlet’s hand in marriage” (Floyd-Wilson 401). This relationship Ophelia has between her father is very one-sided and unhealthy. It is formal and proper with very few emotions attached to each other. However, because Polonius is the only parental figure Ophelia has and loves him, his death was extremely difficult for her. Her father, hasn’t left her like Laertes and hasn’t rejected her like Hamlet. Making his unexpected death the final straw to her losing her sanity. Without someone to guide her, she is lost. She is unable to blindly follow a man but is to racked with emotion to think clearly.
most inexorably stupid men to hold the foreign minister ship of any major power in this century." That judgment is inaccurate, as this book shows. Molotov was the supreme apparatchik. Stalin ordered him to divorce his wife. Molotov complied--only to be reunited with her after Stalin's death. Resilience guided by intuitive cunning ensured ...
Since these parents are concern only about their selves, it leads them to control their children’s lives. As parents, they must allow their children to make their own choices and to learn from their mistakes because it is part of growing up, but Polonius demands how Ophelia should live her love life. In act one, scene three, Ophelia was not able to describe her feelings about Hamlet because Polonius kept insisting that Hamlet was not an acceptable man for her. He also believes Ophelia is misguided because he thinks she is naïve about what Hamlet intentionally wants which is just a sexual relationship, or as Polonius describes Hamlet’s plan, “unholy suits” (I, iii). Never, once, did Polonius consider to understand his daughter’s emotions because
While driving back home from a party in the city, Daisy and Gatsby hit and kill Myrtle Wilson, Tom’s lover. Nick finds Gatsby hiding in the bushes outside of Daisy’s home, and Gatsby reveals that Daisy had been driving when Myrtle was struck down. Despite this revelation, Myrtle’s husband, George, is told that the accident was Gatsby’s fault. George, who had already believed that Gatsby was his wife’s lover, shoots and kills Gatsby as he is floating in his pool, then proceeds ...
Tess is almost immediately seduced by one of her cousins. She became pregnant, but her child dies soon after it is born. She never tells the cousin that their child has died. But later, after she falls in love with the son of a local minister and marries him, she confesses her past. This is to much for her new husband to deal with. He "married down" because he was attracted to Tess's humble origins. Back then, men married down to lower classes if the women was beautiful because it would make the man look good. Obviously women were not well respected. But he is not prepared to accept the reality of her past. He leaves on a bizarre mission to South America.
Polonius immediately calls to question Ophelia’s ability to reason with his opening remark, “I must tell you / You do not understand yourself so clearly.” (1.3.104-105). This statement along with his suggestion to, “Think yourself a baby” (1.3.114) in regards to how she feels about Hamlet show his commanding nature and instant mistrust of how Ophelia could possibly behave in the best way. Ophelia, to her credit, responds with a curt, “I shall obey, my lord” (1.3.145), which shows her maturity and respect by avoiding conflict through a calm demeanor. However, given how she responded to Laertes, this response also comes across as snide and mocking showing her independence through a resilient, almost defiant, statement. Ophelia, for the second time, faces immediate threats to her power over herself and deals with both calmly and intelligently by not provoking a reaction while still showing abject
One example of Hamlet’s madness is how he mocks Polonius. He would not do so normally because Polonius is older than he is so he would normally treat him with a certain amount of respect which he does not do following the sighting of the ghost of Old Hamlet. The Ghost tells Hamlet of his murder, and to test the truth of what he is told, Hamlet puts on “an antic disposition”. Hamlet manages to convince Polonius that he is inconsiderate of others, knowing that with seeing this odd change i...
Ophelia is manipulated by Hamlet to display to the King and the rest of the court that he is in fact mad. When Hamlet enters her room wearing disheveled clothing and acting quite strange towards her, he knows that Ophelia will tell her father and the King. Ophelia then reports this strange occurrence to her father, telling him about his strange composure of taking her “by the wrist and” holding her hard and then “shaking” when he was about to let go. (Act 2, Scene 1 Lines 86-91) The team of Polonius and the King also exploits Ophelia in order to dig deeper into Hamlet’s madness.