The story of Hamlet, a play written by William Shakespeare, is a story filled with betrayal, loss and secrecy. Many people interpret the tale differently to find its meaning. The themes I will be discussing from this play is melancholy, madness, and sanity. I will explore these three things in the character Hamlet and also in Ophilia. Though their experiences are different, they share similar feelings but deal with them in different ways. In the beginning, we find out that Hamlet 's father is dead. Hamlet is deeply saddened by this. It had been two months and he still mourned of him speaking of the heaviness he feels (Act 1 Scene 1 pg. 1052). He was in a deep depressive state, and the fact that his mother moved on and married his …show more content…
His father was murdered, HIs mother becomes Queen to his murderous uncle, who is now King, his friends are spying on him, and Ophilia, his love, dies. He has a lot on his plate and there were many times where Hamlet questioned whether his life was even worth living anymore. One example of that is in his famous 'To be, not not to be" speech he gives while thinking to himself (Act 3 Scene 1 pg. 1090). Another time where he thought loosely of his life was when he was preparing to fight Laertes. Even though he knew the odds weren 't fair, he didn 't care (Act 5 Scene 1 pg. 1144). Hamlet 's regards towards his life on many occasions have been a result of the crazy life he was …show more content…
In this case, when Ophilia hears of her father’s death, she goes in to a deep depression. She begins acting strange and many people, like the Queen, she is mad with grief. She would sing of her father’s death and how he was gone forever and never coming back. (Act 4 Scene 5 pg. 1119). While singing, she comes and goes in and out of the different rooms of the castle until eventually she comes only wearing straws and flowers. She would pass them out saying that they brought luck or what the represented, and then she would continue to sing even after. The death of Polonius, Ophilia 's father, had taken a huge toll on her. The sadness she was feeling had overtaken her, which lead to her drowning. (Act Scene 7 pg 1130). His death shocked everyone. Not having her father around drove her to such a state of mind that made her question her own life. Maybe out of grief and a fuzzy, distraught train of thought, Ophilia went to her death thinking she 'd be with her father again in Heaven. The comparison of these two characters, Hamlet and Ohpilia, showed the sadness, craziness, and mental state of them both and how they handled it. The two played an important role in showing the audience how grief, deceit, and the strain of everyday life can really effect the mind. Either way, Hamlet is an untimely play that continues to inspire and raise questions to this day, and that is what makes it one of the
Hamlet views his existing life in a negative manner, and he sees that the only way to escape his misery is to take his own life. A thought of self-slaughter is enough to devalue one’s life, and throughout the entirety of the play it is the only way Hamlet values his own life. To live or not to live, that is Hamlet’s only question, while the value of his own life is not in
Throughout the play, grief takes center stage in many of thecharacter’s lives, but they all choose to react in a different fashion. Grief takes many distinct shapes and forms and until people learn how to overcome it, it will remain an integral part of life. One way to escape grief is to commit suicide, as Ophelia apparently does. Thegravedigger proclaims, “Is she to be buried in Christian burial that willfully seeks her own salvation” (Act V Scene I Lines 1-2). The gravedigger is wondering why a woman who has taken her own life deserves such a fancy funeral. When the Queen informs Laertes and Claudius of Ophelia’s death, she says, “...she[Ophelia] chanted snatches of old tunes” (Act IV Scene VII Line 195). Ophelia did not know how to express her grief, other than in song. In Act IV, she sings of Polonius, “He is dead and gone, lady, he is dead and gone” (Scene V Lines 31-32).
Ophelia died after collecting flowers from over a brook. I think that she was collecting them to distribute to the court, as she did after her father’s death. Flowers are a symbol of innocence, pure and easily destroyed. The tree she was crawling along whilst collecting these garlands was a willow, which is usually associated with weeping and grief, something we have assigned to the “watery” (perhaps with tears) character of Ophelia. The branches of a willow hang down towards the ground in a downcast fashion, indicating grief. The personification even extends to her garments that were “too heavy with heir drink.” The ...
This shows once again the elements of a tragic play. You can also see the innocence of Ophelia throughout the play. She tried to remain loyal to each of the three men she loved, and it ended up costing her life. However, her “suicide” was not really considered suicide back in the day, so she was still allowed to have a “Christian” burial. It was not considered suicide because she is not the one who caused her grief. Suicide was only considered suicide back then if you killed yourself for something you had done, for example, if you had murdered someone.
He moreover addresses how she has been talking madly. Everybody who tunes in to Ophelia is starting to come to a conclusion that she is crazy and they trust that it has a ton to do with her the passing of her father. As different characters turn out to be exceptionally stressed over Ophelia's madness, they start to address what Ophelia could do to herself or others. This relates with the audience because many individuals end up demoralized when they lose a companion. A couple individuals actually wind up insane. This may be the motivation in which the audience can identify with Ophelia on the grounds that losing a companion is never simple. Ophelia tries to similarly manage the downfall in her own particular manner by going out and conversing with different characters regardless of the way that she is viewed as crazy. That is another reason the audience can identify with Ophelia, in light of the fact that large portions of people endeavor to manage demise in their own specific manner. A significant number of the characters now trust that Ophelia's brain has been hurt in perspective of her father's passing. They feel that Ophelia ought to be observed nearly in light of the fact that they are not aware of what she could do to herself or others. They feel that her judgment has been blurred by her madness, and that she has has now completely lost
It is impossible to get around Hamlet's murder of Polonius being a trigger for Ophelia's decent into madness. However, upon closer examination it is not this trigger alone that is the cause for her madness and it is surely not only this that leads to her eventual suicide. Ophelia is expected to be a perfect lady, which in part meant following the orders of the men in her life. In addition to that pressure and cruelty is the added cruelty of how often those men change their minds about her and what she should do. Adding to that the repeated abandonment and the murder of her father by her lover, it is no wonder she went into a madness that ended in her death.
This can be proven by the change in Ophelia’s actions and behavior. Ophelia starts to sing strange songs in front of Gertrude about her father’s death and Hamlet’s madness. Ophelia sings to Gertrude and sings, “He is dead and gone, lady, he is dead and gone, at his head a grass-green turf, at his heels a stone” (4.5.26-29).This tells us that Ophelia is a very soft and is a very weak character and can easily get heart broken. She cares about her family and the death of her father has shattered her into pieces, it may cause problems for her to
To capture our sympathy, Ophelia goes through a transformation unlike any other character in Hamlet. She is abandoned by everyone she holds dear; her father Polonius, her brother Laertes, and Hamlet, her lover. And yet Ophelia becomes tangled in a web of madness when her loyalty is torn between Polonius and Hamlet. Most horrible of all is Ophelia's suicide-death. The emotion is evokes, coupled with the above points shows that Shakespeare's intentions was to make Ophelia, a minor character in terms of the number of lines assigned to her, into a memorable character evoking the most sympathy.
The play begins with Hamlet, distraught about his father’s death and the fact that his mother married the king’s brother, Claudius. This is the beginning external conflict. The king died only two months before the marriage and it’s causing quite a stir. This is where the first soliloquy begins. Hamlet is alone in a room and laments his father. He does it in a way that’s almost an exaggeration. He calls his father a god in his eyes and his uncle a beast. “So excellent a king, that was to this Hyperion to a satyr.” (1. 2. 140-141) He also mourns that his
From the beginning, Hamlet is set up for tragedy. The death of his father leaves a void in Hamlet's life. In Act 1 Scene 2, Hamlet says, "How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable / Seem to me all the uses of this world!" Hamlet has lost his purpose in life and
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, written by William Shakespeare, is considered to be one of his most perplexing plays. The tragedy follows the story of Prince Hamlet as he undergoes states of insanity, depression, and eventual death. Theories regarding Hamlet’s relationship with Ophelia are developed through subplots and leave the reader questioning as to whether Hamlet truly loved her. Arguments can be made that Hamlet and Ophelia love one another, but there are many obstacles that prevent them from rightly being together. The couple face a series of cascading problems, including the high expectations set forth by their friends and family. As the story develops, these problems cause major setbacks that become impossible to
People all around the world are familiar with the “To be or not to be” speech. Although some might not realize it is a speech by Hamlet, they do realize how powerful those lines are. Those lines show the mark of a great philosopher, and this is precisely what Hamlet is. Because Hamlet is such a fantastic philosopher at the start of the play, it leads him to what some believe is his downfall. The fact that perhaps he thinks too much on the people and incidents surrounding him is really what pulls him down. He spends an excessive amount of his day thinking about every aspect of every event.
Ophelia is a beautiful and simple-minded woman, easily molded by the more powerful opinions and desires of others. The thoughts of her father and her brother influenced her the most. The love letters from Hamlet also swayed her opinions and confused her mind. Ophelia wasn't able to realize herself because of all the pressures exerted on her to be something she's not. That weakness of mind and will, which permitted her obedience to her father and thus destroyed her hope for Hamlet's love, finally resulted in her insanity and death.
Readers are first given insight to Hamlet’s most inward thoughts in Act I, Scene 2. At this point in the play, Hamlet’s mother and uncle, Queen Gertrude and Claudius, have just announced their marriage. For the past few months, Hamlet has been grieving incessantly at the abrupt loss of his beloved father and king. In the eyes of the Queen and new King, Hamlet has mourned sufficiently and their marriage is in attempt to end the depressing state of the kingdom. Hamlet’s uncle, now step-father, even goes as far as saying Hamlet is acting like a stubborn girl for his prolonged misery, urging him to cease his weeping. Once his mother and uncle leave the stage, Hamlet mulls over the current situation. He starts off by stating that he longs to simply cease to exist, that his flesh would disintegrate back into the earth. He knows that the Lord condemns suicide, but wishes it was allowed for his sake. These first two lines point to Hamlet’s suicidal tendencies and his lack of self-esteem and self-worth. Not only does he have a low opinion of his own life, but he compares the world in his day to an “unweeded garden” that has produced and fostered a vile and corrupt humanity. At this point, existence to him seems lifeless and insignificant, cla...
Tragic death plays a really big role in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Hamlet often considers death in many different perspectives, and definitely obsesses with the idea more so after his fathers’ death. Hamlet’s soliloquy is one of the most famous in literature, “To be or not to be, that is the question…” Hamlet’s dilemma is the pain of life that he must endure or the uncertainty of death. From the beginning of the play to the very last scene, the fascination between life and death plays a role throughout. Hamlet is troubled through the play after realizing that his uncle was the one who murdered his father and is now married to his mother. He wants to avenge Hamlet Sr. death and kill Claudius but feels that killing himself would be an easier resolution. After the death of his murdered father and appearance at his funeral, Hamlet will not leave anywhere without making the statement of his all black attire on the inside and out. The turn of events throughout the play only help the reader understand the debt of each character and their specific role to Hamlet and to the story in regards to life and death.