Uncertainty is one of the most familiar concept, if not the main concept, in Hamlet and in Shakespeare's work in general. It may be perplexed, but within Hamlet, using ambiguity brings forth ideas related to the mystery of death, the desired and undesired, and Hamlet’s insanity. With ambiguity, Shakespeare contributes to a theme of uncertainty in Hamlet.
From the start, the doubt of King Hamlet’s ghost being an angel or devil interconnects with the information the ghost tells Hamlet. After conversing with the ghost, Hamlet gets the information that Claudius murdered his father. If the ghost is indeed an angel trying to communicate with Hamlet, the information is true. However, if the ghost is the devil it may be a trick. Hamlet must confirm
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Like the ghost being an angel or devil, Gertrude is questioned as to being guilty or not. With Hamlet’s determination to prove if Gertrude is at any fault, he becomes skeptical of his mother. The play within the play, where Hamlet organizes the scene to reenact his father’s death, based upon what the ghost has told him, could have been intended to test Gertrude’s consciousness. After passing the test, with no apparent reaction that could contribute to guiltiness, Hamlet within himself declares her not guilty and they are able to reconcile. Before this, Hamlet had to be cautious with his actions because he was uncertain of her nature. Hamlet with Gertrude's ambiguity reverses the uncertainty when he feels that he can trust …show more content…
Her ambiguity factors into whether she committed suicide and whether she was a virgin. Ophelia died after Hamlet had broken her heart and killed her father. Gertrude announced that Ophelia fell into the water, but there is a possibility that Ophelia commited suicide because of her emotional pain. This ambiguous situation brings uncertainty to her mantal state when she died and if she was indeed entitled to a proper burial. Prior to dying, Ophelia constantly in the play is feminized, being compared to a flower, and marked with sexual innuendos. Hamlet had told her during one of his breakouts of insanity to go to a nunnery because no one wants to marry her now. Ophelia, if she lost her virginity to Hamlet, will never find a husband. Ophelia arises uncertainty, but the idea of her mental state and virginity are never
Ophelia is driven to the point of insanity and ends up drowning herself in a pond. 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.
... the mother-son relationship, Hamlet’s reaction to the ghost and Gertrude’s guilt is closer to the original text in which Shakespeare leaves room for audience interpretation. Had Shakespeare not penned a true reflection of human behaviour in all its subtleties, the Dovan and Scott versions of Hamlet might not have been questioned for their legitimacy.
James, D.G. “The New Doubt.” Twentieth Century Interpretations of Hamlet. Ed. David Bevington. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1968.
Apart from the ambiguity surrounding her death and her love for Hamlet, Ophelia is described by all as an innocent child, grappling with situations her youth is unprepared for. Even if she had consummated her love for Hamlet, I can still picture Ophelia as a vulnerable and innocent child who has to cope with situations beyond her control in a world where the role of the female is passive. It is this helplessness which Gertrude wants to look after as she “hoped thou should’st have been my Hamlet’s wife” and her madness which Gertrude wants to save her form by allowing Ophelia to make the decision over life and death.
As a young man, Hamlet's mind is full of many questions about the events that occur during his complicated life. This leads to the next two categories of his mind. His need to seek the truth and his lack of confidence in his own impulses. Hamlets’ confusion in what he wants to ...
The question of why Hamlet delays in taking revenge on Claudius for so long has puzzled readers and audience members alike. Immediately following Hamlet's conversation with the Ghost, he seems determined to fulfill the Ghost's wishes and swears his companions to secrecy about what has occurred. The next appearance of Hamlet in the play reveals that he has not yet revenged his father's murder. In Scene two, act two, Hamlet gives a possible reason for his hesitation. "The spirit that I have seen / May be a devil, and the devil hath power / T' assume a pleasing shape" (2.2.627-629). With this doubt clouding his mind, Hamlet seems completely unable to act. This indecision is somewhat resolved in the form of the play. Hamlet comes up with the idea of the play that is similar to the events recounted by the ghost about his murder to prove Claudius guilty or innocent. Due to the king's reaction to the play, Hamlet attains the belief that the Ghost was telling the truth the night of the apparition.
With the men’s constant abuse, they each start telling her different things. Unsure of whom to listen to, she starts to get confused and starts losing herself. When finally there was no one there to tell her anymore she goes mad, and on the brink of her madness she ends up killing herself. Throughout all these events, no one stops to think of her as an actual person, but instead like a rag doll they could just toss around. The play Hamlet itself was discussed without any bother of Ophelia for nearly four hundred years before scholars started to think of her and read the play with a Feminist viewpoint.
In the Renaissance period, as well as in many parts of the world today, women are forced to rely upon men to make decisions for them. Ophelia is an example that being a female in the real world and in Shakespeare's play can be difficult when women have to be silent and obey men. Consequently, she could not survive in the cruel world once the dominating men in her life were gone. For this reason, although Ophelia doesn’t speak very much in the play, the audience is sympathetic towards her and can conclude that in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Ophelia did in fact commit suicide.
Towards the end of the play, Hamlet becomes enraged and accuses his mother for marrying his uncle in such a short time after his father’s death. The incestuous relationship suggest that his mother might have been involved in her husband’s murder, which is more reason to kill Claudius. Gertrude is a loving figure that is unable to understand Hamlet’s delicate state. Her way of solving problems is by isolating those that confront her, instead of analyzing her own mistakes and owning up to them. When Hamlet walks into his mother’s bedroom, he kills Polonius who is hiding behind the arras, and compares the murder to his mother’s guilt. “A bloody deed! Almost as bad, good mother, / As kill a king, and marry with his brother” (3.4.28-29). The queen cannot handle and truth and tells Hamlet to stop speaking. “O Hamlet, speak no more: / Thou turn’st mine eyes into my very soul, / And there I see such black and grained spots / As will not leave their tinct” (3.4.89-92). It’s a similar reaction of guilt, like Claudius who didn’t want to continue seeing the murder play because he didn’t want to accept the reality of his crime. In another instance, the queen decides to send Hamlet to England to prevent another death. Here, her solution is cowardly and says a lot about her character. She is inclined to go for the easy way out, rather than finding a solution to the huge mess she’s caused. In this scene, the reader can apply Gertrude as the antithesis to Hamlet. Unlike Hamlet who considered ethical and an innocent young man, Gertrude is described as traitor, wicked woman, and an adulterate. Her lust and external pleasures have impacted her family greatly and those she governs over. She is a shallow woman who does not see the consequences of her decisions. Even though she is at the highest level of authority, she seems to lack the most important qualities of a royal ruler: integrity and
This introduction initiates Hamlet’s anger and investigation of the supposed murder by Claudius. He did not want to raise any suspicion that he knew the truth, so acting mad became a cover. Later on, when Hamlet speaks to Gertrude in Act 3, scene 4, he sees the ghost again, but Gertrude does not. He responds to
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.
Hamlet lies one of the greatest entanglements of literature. Yet, it is still questioned whether a play submerged in ambiguity can be abridged to an encompassing single word and still express Hamlet’s absoluteness and amplitude. It is within the multitude of interpretations and ideations surrounding Hamlet a pattern can be found. Within Hamlet’s excessive engagement with philosophical
This is unhealthy for both of them and Hamlet is very angry after the confrontation and Ophelia is disappointed in herself greatly. In the end the strain is too much for Ophelia, her body is discovered in a shallow pond from an apparent suicide. The final straw that set her off was the fact that hamlet killed her father. At this point she's lost everything.
He didn’t know if he could trust the ghost, or if it was a spirit from heaven or from hell, or even if it was the spirit of his father at all. Hamlet didn’t even know if he could trust the accusation that the ghost had made on his Uncle/Stepfather. To be able to prove that Claudius did in fact poison King Hamlet, young Hamlet sets a plan in action that is supposed to prove Claudius’s guilt. When the players come into town, Hamlet asks them to add a few more lines to one of the plays that relate to the situation that transpired between Claudius and the king (Act III Scene II). Hamlet will watch Claudius’s reaction to the play, and thinks he should be able to determine if he was guilty or not based on
The perfection of Hamlet’s character has been called in question - perhaps by those who do not understand it. The character of Hamlet stands by itself. It is not a character marked by strength of will or even of passion, but by refinement of thought and sentiment. Hamlet is as little of the hero as a man can be. He is a young and princely novice, full of high enthusiasm and quick sensibility - the sport of circumstances, questioning with fortune and refining on his own feelings, and forced from his natural disposition by the strangeness of his situation.