Act 5 starts with a discussion between two undertakers as they burrow Ophelia's Grave. They discuss gossip that Ophelia submitted suicide and ponder whether she needed to have been covered in sacrosanct ground. We discover that the ruler has superseded the complaints of the pastorate and accommodated her entombment. The fundamental undertaker sends his accomplice off for a measure of alcohol and after that initiates to burrow singing melodies at the same time. Villages seems entranced by the undertakers feeling to the gravity of his calling. As the undertakers tosses different skulls out of the grave. Village approaches the undertaker and converses with him about the work. The undertaker enlightens Hamlet concerning the time span it take bodies to rot in the ground. He …show more content…
Village is astonished he knew Yorick and adored him as a kid. He takes up the skull and talks about Yorick.This conversation that leads him to consider the nature of mortality. Then a procession interrupts Hamlet’s daydream Claudius, Gertrude, and Laertes march toward the grave along with a priest and an entourage bearing a body. Hamlet notices that is less complexed that usual, signifying that the deceased was a suicide. He and Horatio stand aside while Laertes argues with the priest about the paltriness of the burial rites. While they were arguing, Laertes reveals to Hamlet that the dead body is that Ophelia. Gertrude steps forward to say farewell to Ophelia. Laertes follows. Laertes leaps into his sister’s grave to hold her body again and orders the gravediggers to bury him alive. Provoked by the show of grief, Hamlet then reveals himself. After grappling with Laertes, Hamlet declares that he loved Ophelia more than forty thousand brothers could. The king and queen dismiss what he said as madness. Hamlet then exits and Horatio follows him. After they have left, Claudius reminds Laertes of their plan to take care of
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.
He allows his true feelings and emotions to pour out at her grave for the last time before she is buried and gone forever: “I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers / Could not with all their quantity of love / Make up my sum,” (V.i.285-87). Regardless to the amount of love Ophelia’s brother had for her, Hamlet claims that he loves her more than Laertes ever could. Similar to the symbolism in his letters, he expresses his abundant love for Ophelia and how she is the girl he truly cares about. The prince comes straight out with his feelings and does not act insane during the funeral, he is simply being honest straight from his heart. Now that she is gone, Hamlet cannot protect her and has no reason to hid his true emotions towards
This encounter is essential to the plot, in that it provides for Hamlet's return from England and sets the stage for Hamlet's discovery of Ophelia's death. It brings Hamlet from the state in which he was able to easily arrange for the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to one in which he can feel deep sorrow at the loss of Ophelia. It further grants him a better perspective on the nature of death and on his own fate. Its sharp focus on death further serves to prepare the audience for the conclusion of the play. Up to this point, Hamlet has been an active agent in trying to fulfill his destiny as prescribed by his father's ghost. His actions were disorganized and his goal continually foiled. For example, his attempt to control the situation renders him incapable of killing Claudius when he is at prayer, since Hamlet wishes to manipulate the circumstances of Claudius' death so that he is "about some act that has no relish in't" (III, iv, 91-2). The lesson of the graveyard is that death is inevitable, not contrived. Having learned this lesson, Hamlet is a more passive agent of his own fate and the plot resolves itself. The ...
Hamlet’s apparent antics with Ophelia prove that their relationship begins to fall apart and become unhealthy. Hamlet mistreats Ophelia when she attempts to return the gifts he has given her, and he responds in a harsh manner, asking about her chastity and beauty, saying “that if [she] be honest and fair, [her] honesty/should admit no discourse to [her] beauty” (3.1.117-118). Hamlet continues to belittle her, calling her two-faced and admitting that he “did love [her] once” (3.1.125), his feelings for her now absent. Hamlet’s facade becomes personal through this. The entire exchange shows how Hamlet prioritizes his revenge, over his love because he eventually figures out that Polonius and Claudius spy on him. Hamlet soon speculates Ophelia’s association in their plan and decides to put on a facade for her too. Claudius’s facade also affects his relationship with Gertrude and Hamlet. After his speech to the court, Claudius approaches Hamlet in a way that appears as if he cares about him, even addressing him as “my cousin Hamlet and my son” (1.2.66), despite being aware of Hamlet’s sensitive and depressive state because of his father’s death. Moreover, Claudius expresses his deceitful love when he admits to Laertes that he won’t put Hamlet on trial because he mentions how much he loves Gertrude, and that she “is so conjunctive to my life and soul/that, as the
This, of course, causes a landslide of tragedy in the play. Claudius exiles Hamlet to England and sends sealed letters to the King of England telling him to kill Hamlet upon his arrival. Ophelia goes insane. Laertes, Hamlet's brother, returns from France with an army, demanding to know why Polonius was killed. Claudius enlists Laertes to kill Hamlet. Ophelia commits suicide. Hamlet and Laertes duel at her funeral; both of them are mortally wounded, Gertrude kills herself and Hamlet kills Claudius.
Troubled by royal treason, ruthless scheming, and a ghost, Denmark is on the verge of destruction. Directly following King Hamlet's death, the widowed Queen Gertrude remarried Claudius, the King's brother. Prince Hamlet sees the union of his mother and uncle as a "hasty and incestuous" act (Charles Boyce, 232). He then finds out that Claudius is responsible for his father's treacherous murder. His father's ghost asks Hamlet to avenge his death and Hamlet agrees. He plans very carefully, making sure that he doesn't kill Claudius when in he has already been forgiven for his sins. Hamlet accidentally kills Polonius, the King's advisor, thinking that it was Claudius hiding behind a curtain spying on Hamlet and his mother. This drives Ophelia, Polonius' daughter and Hamlet's love interest, insane. She then drowns in a suspected suicide when she falls from a tree into a river. Laertes, Ophelia's brother, teams up with Claudius and plot revenge on the strained prince.
The Plague of Revenge In William Shakespeare 's play, Hamlet, after Hamlet’s father is murdered with poison by his brother Claudius, the contagion of vengeful actions begins to plague the people in the kingdom. Hamlet Sr. and his death are symbolic of the kingdom as a whole. Once he is poisoned the evil deeds of King Claudius begin to spread throughout Elsinore. Hamlet puts on an antic disposition and decides to seek retribution after speaking with his father’s ghost, and uncovering the truth about his death.
Hamlet and Laertes share a different but deep love and concern for Ophelia. Laertes advises her to retain from seeing and being involved with Hamlet because of his social status. He didn’t want her to get her heart broken by Hamlet, since he believed that his marriage would be arranged to someone of his social status, and that he would only use and hurt Ophelia. Hamlet on the other hand, was madly in love with Ophelia but it languishes after she rejects him. Ophelia’s death caused distress in both Hamlet and Laertes and it also made Laertes more hostile towards Hamlet.
The most important death that happens in "The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark" is the Death of King Hamlet. His death sets in motion all corruption, tragedy, and deaths that follow. Once King Hamlet is dead his son, Hamlet, goes crazy plotting his revenge against his uncle, because of Claudius's deceptive ways Hamlet starts to feel betrayed by his closest friends. This includes Ophelia, Daughter of Polonius, who eventually is driven to insanity following the death of her father, and how Hamlet's leaves her accusing her of lying to him and betraying their love. "So fast they follow. Your sister's drown'd, Laertes." (The Queen 4.7.165) the death of Ophelia affects Laertes to the point that he changes Hamlet to a dual to the death. Laertes and Claudius plan to poison hamlet to kill him, but instead of poisoning Hamlet the queen is the one who ends up drinking from the cup with poison and dying. The death of Hamlet's mother distracts him long enough for Laertes to cut Hamlet behind his ear poisoning him with the tip of his blade. Hamlet quickly strikes back striking Laertes with his poisned blade bonding them both to their deaths.As Laertes struggles to stay alive he tells hamlet the truth about Claudius's corrupted plan to kill Hamlet. This drives him to finally seek revenge for his parents. He forces Claudius to drink the poison and watches him die as his mother, Laertes, and himself die with
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).
Go back to the beginning of Hamlet final act as the gravediggers shovel away dirt to bury Ophelia. The gravediggers are debating if Ophelia deserves a Christian burial because she took her own life. The gravedigger’s argument is, “if I drown myself willingly, it argues on act. And an act hath three branches –it is to act, to do, to perform. Argal, she drowned herself willingly.”
It is widely believed that “Living life without honor is a tragedy bigger than death itself” and this holds true for Hamlet’s Ophelia. Ophelia’s death symbolizes a life spent passively tolerating Hamlet’s manipulations and the restrictions imposed by those around her, while struggling to maintain the last shred of her dignity. Ophelia’s apathetic reaction to her drowning suggests that she never had control of her own life, as she was expected to comply with the expectations of others. Allowing the water to consume her without a fight alludes to Hamlet’s treatment of Ophelia as merely a device in his personal agenda. Her apparent suicide denotes a desire to take control of her life for once. Ophelia’s death is, arguably, an honorable one, characterized by her willingness to let go of her submissive, earth-bound self and leave the world no longer a victim.
the throne and married Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother. Ophelia became depressed after Hamlet accidentally murdered her father, Polonius, and decided to drown herself in a river. After finding out that both his father and sister were dead, Laertes was furious. Claudius used Laertes’ fury and desire for revenge to plan Hamlet’s death. The plan was a fencing match between Laertes and Hamlet, where Claudius would poison Laertes’ blade as wel...
This final act of the play surely sums up the love that Hamlet had for Ophelia. Dramatically, Hamlet jumps into the grave of Ophelia. Distraught with grief for her, Hamlet confronts her brother, Laertes, telling him that he loved her even more than a brother loves a sister. Hamlet cries out to Laertes “I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers could not, with all their quantity of love, make up my sum” (Shakespeare, Act IV, scene I, lines 285-287). Although it was too late for Ophelia to hear Hamlet’s true feelings expressed once again, this does show that Hamlet’s love was not madness, but genuine affection. Pouring out his heartfelt emotions, Hamlet says he loved her so much he would do anything for
Another significant female character is Ophelia, Hamlet's love. Hamlet's quest for revenge interferes with his relationship with Ophelia. There is much evidence to show that Hamlet loved her a great deal, but his pretense of madness drove her to her death. Ophelia drowned not knowing what was happening to her. This can be deduced by the fact that she flowed down the river singing and happy when in truth she was heartbroken. Ophelia was very much afraid when she saw Hamlet "with his doublet all unbraced; No hat upon his head; his stockings foul'd, Ungarter'd, and down-gyved to his ancle" (Act #. Scene #. Line #). She described him as being "loosed out of hell" (Act #. Scene #. Line #). In addition to that he scared her when he left the room with his eyes still fixed on her. She is especially hurt when Hamlet tells her that he no longer loves her and that he is opposed to marriage. He advises her to go to a nunnery and avoid marriage if she can.