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How do the characters in hamlet handle grief
Theme statement about grief in hamlet
How do the characters in hamlet handle grief
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Melancholy, grief, and madness have enlarged the works of a great many playwrights,
and Shakespeare is not an exception. The mechanical regularities of such emotional
maladies as they are presented within Hamlet, not only allow his audience to sympathize
with the tragic prince Hamlet, but to provide the very complexities necessary in
understanding the tragedy of his, ironically similar, lady Ophelia as well. It is the poor
Ophelia who suffers at her lover's discretion because of decisions she was obligated to
make. Hamlet provides his own self-torture and does fall victim to depression and grief,
however, his madness is fictitious.
They each share a common
connection: the loss of a parental figure. Hamlet loses his father as a result of a horrible
murder, as does Ophelia. Her situation is more severe because it is her lover who
murders her father and all of her hopes for her future as well. Ultimately, it is also more
harmful to her character and causes her melancholy and grief to quickly turn to madness.
Critics argue that Hamlet has the first reason to be hurt by Ophelia because she follows
her father's wishes regarding Hamlet's true intentions for their beginning love. In Act 3,
Hamlet begins with his spiteful sarcasm toward her. "I humbly thank you, well, well,
well," he says to her regarding her initial bantering. (III, i, 101) Before this scene, he has
learned that the King and Polonius have established a plan to make reason of his unusual
and grief-stricken behavior. Hamlet is well aware that this plan merely uses Ophelia as a
tool, and as such, she does not have much option of refusing without angering her father
and the conniving King as well. Hamlet readily refuses that he cared for her. He tells her
and all of his uninvited listeners, "No, not I, I never gave you aught" (III, i, 105). Some
critics stress, as does J. Dover Wilson, that Hamlet has a right to direct his anger to
Ophelia because even though many critics "in their sympathy with Ophelia have
forgotten that it is not Hamlet who has 'repelled' her, but she him" (Wilson 159). But it is
possible that Wilson does not see the possible harm to Ophelia if she were to disobey the
authority of her father and the king.(i.e. her father and her king). She is undeniably
caught in a trap that has been laid
, in part, by her lover whom she loves and idealizes.
Her shock is genuine when Hamlet demands "get thee to a nunnery" (III, i, 131).
One of the most emotional and moving scenes in William Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet is in Act III, Scene I lines 90-155 in which the title character becomes somewhat abusive toward his once loved girlfriend Ophelia. It is interesting to examine the possible motives behind Hamlet's blatant harshness in this "Get the to a nunnery" scene toward the easily manipulated and mild mannered girl. While watching Kenneth Branagh and Mel Gibson's film adaptations of the play, the audience may recognize two possibilities of the many that may exist which may explain the Prince's contemptible behavior; Kenneth Branaugh seems to suggest that this display of animosity will help the troubled man convince his enemies that he is in fact demented, whereas the Mel Gibson work may infer that Hamlet's repressed anger toward his mother causes him to "vent" his frustrations upon Ophelia, the other female of importance in his life.
Oakes, Elizabeth. A. "Polonius, the Man behind the Arras: A Jungian Study. " New Essays on Hamlet.
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:
While Hamlet may still be feeling depressed Hamlet moves into the stage of denial and isolation. Hamlet feels the effects of denial and isolation mostly due to his love, Ophelia. Both Hamlet’s grief and his task constrain him from realizing this love, but Ophelia’s own behavior clearly intensifies his frustration and anguish. By keeping the worldly and disbelieving advice of her brother and father as “watchmen” to her “heart” (I.iii.46), she denies the heart’s affection not only in Hamlet, but in herself; and both denials add immeasurably to Hamlet’s sense of loneliness and loss—and anger. Her rejection of him echoes his mother’s inconstancy and denies him the possibility even of imagining the experience of loving an...
Hamlet, Ophelia’s lover, accidentally kills her father and “confesses” he never loved her, Hamlet toys with Ophelia's emotions intentionally and unintentionally to solidify his madness. Even though she was the who initiated the “breakup”, her sorrows of the relationship are much more public than Hamlets. Hamlet’s madness scares Ophelia away which he used as a defense mechanism to not be hurt anymore. His madness looks as though he had been "loosed out of hell to speak of horrors" (2.1.83-84) and she "truly [did] fear it"(2.1. 86). His insanity and rudeness suffocated any love she had for him. She admits that their "their perfume [has been] lost" (3.1. 99). This helped Hamlet solidify his insanity by cutting ties with the ones he loves, and having them tell others he is mad. This comes with the cost of discontinuing his relationships: especially with Ophelia. Both have hinted around in the text of an intimate affair. This makes the emotions and breakup even more difficult for both of them. Their relationship was a love, not an innocent crush or courtship. Poor Ophelia initially thought she caused Hamlet's madness due to the abrupt ending of their affair. But because of her naivety, she lacks to see his other internal struggles. Ophelia’s trust in Hamlet left her heartbroken. Hamlet’s agenda of or getting justice for his father occupied his mind more than Ophelia did. Which left her feeling
Ophelia’s madness represents the evilness of the society we live in. It shows the madness and darker side of the world, and the people who live in it.
Hamlet is one of the most controversial characters from all of the Shakespeare’s play. His character is strong and complicated, but his jealousy is what conduces him to hate women. He sees them as weak, frail, and untrustworthy. He treats Ophelia, the women he loves, unfair and with cruelty. Similarly, he blames his mother for marrying her dead husband’s brother, who is now the King of Denmark. Hamlet’s treatment for women stems from his mother’s impulsive marriage to his uncle who he hates and Ophelia choosing her father’s advice over him.
The causes of Ophelia's decent into madness start long before she is raving and signing rude songs. It is a madness brought of mistreatment; a mistreatment that started with her father. Upon first hearing of Hamlet's affection for her Polonius is very dismissive of it. He even tells her not to waste her time with him as a result "I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth Have you so slander any moment leisure As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet." (Shakespeare & Bevington, 2009, pp. P1105 L133-135) This is given as an order, which Ophelia says she will obey. The earlier exchange is quite dismissive of the affection between Ophelia and Hamlet, despite her defending it in terms of Hamlet having shown that love both in words and gifts and the defense of him courting her in an honorable fashion. Polonius is again quick to dismiss his daughter's view of the world saying "Affection? Pooh! you speak like a green ...
... her in a dismal state” (Maki 1). This is and when things started rolling on downhill. Hamlet had changed and with this change came to the murder of Polonuis, when Hamlet did this, this destroyed Ophelia. “…But after Hamlet kills her father, she later goes mad herself and commits suicide” (Davis & Frankforter 354-55). This no longer is considered an act of love. This is considered an act of insanity. Ophelia was a woman and during that time women did not have the right to stand there own ground they had no voice.
Ophelia loves Hamlet; her emotions drive her to perform her actions. Some would say that Ophelia’s emotions could have actually been what ended her young
Two of Ophelia’s difficulties arise from her father and brother. They believe that Hamlet is using her to take her virginity and throw it away because Ophelia will never be his wife. Her heart believes that Hamlet loves her although he promises he never has (“Hamlet” 1). Hamlet: “Ay, truly, for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness. This was sometime a paradox, but not the time gives it proof. I did love you once.” Ophelia: “Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.” Hamlet: “You should not have believed me, for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock ...
Monarchs and royalty have ruled over us common people for millennia -excluding the past few centuries- and while there have been some great royals like Qin Shi Huang, Julius Caesar, and the current Queen Elizabeth II, there have certainly been some bad ones too. Caligula, a crazed Roman emperor that raped and killed his sister, and Queen Mary I, a devout Catholic that burned three hundred protestants at the stake and lost the last territories England had on the European continent, are both examples of royals that never should’ve been trusted with the throne. Just because someone is born in the line of succession doesn’t mean that they should be given power. Despite Hamlet’s cunning, intelligence, and support from the people, he would’ve made
Ophelia and Gertrude both love Hamlet and both were left heartbroken when he pushed them out of his life. However, many people do not believe that he pushed away the people he cared about. Throughout the play we see Hamlet insult, condemn, and break the hearts of people who loved him. He drives Ophelia mad and breaks his mother’s heart. Hamlet becomes self-centered and only cares about how he feels. He stops caring about Ophelia because he believes that she is a spy and rejects his mother because she rushed to get married after the death of his father, which proved to be a sin in the eyes of Hamlet. Hamlet is a brilliant young man who was once loving and kind to those around him until after the death of his father, his mother’s marriage, and
Hamlet’s sense of betrayal by Gertrude, although briefly taking him off course, ultimately infuriates and intensifies his urge for revenge. Because of Gertrude’s refusal to acknowledge her sins, Hamlet becomes even more personally motivated to kill Claudius for revenge. Queen Gertrude, though ignorant, has a huge impact on the play because her betrayal and abandonment motivates Hamlet to get revenge. When writing Hamlet, Shakespeare created a complex play that relies on the roles of two important women to aid the progression of the plot. Although Queen Gertrude and Ophelia rarely speak, they function as a way for the men to become informed about Hamlet’s mental state and motives for madness.
...t his father and Ophelia are dead and he cannot accept the thought of his mother’s hasty marriage to his conniving and deceitful uncle. Hamlet regrets his previous actions which caused tremendous pain to Ophelia and her family. Just as his own family was destroyed by his uncle’s evil plans, Hamlet realizes that he caused the same pain and negativity on the family of the woman he loved.