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Family dynamics in shakespeare
What is ophelia's importance to the play
What is ophelia's importance to the play
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Family Loyalty versus Love Life A feud within yourself is sometimes worse than having a conflict with another person. Not like debating on rather a dress makes you look fat or not; more like if you should follow your heart or to be obedient to your family. Now, outside looking in you may think this is an easy decision to make but to a delicate, fragile, and beautiful young lady it is not. To be more specific this beauty goes by the name Ophelia, she plays as the lover of Hamlet in the outstanding playwright Hamlet. Ophelia is portrayed as an easily swayed young lady who cannot choose between love and life due to hamlets “mad” act. A love so divine that it leads to a family torn apart and her life being the consequence of it all. Ophelia loves Hamlet but is forced to leave him alone because her father, Polonius, and brother, Laertes, are against her loving a charming lad of such high status such as Hamlet. Laertes brought up the initial conversation more or less as a heads up “For Hamlet and the trifling of his favor, Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood, A violet in the youth of primy nature, Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting, The perfume and suppliance of a minute. No more” (1.3.6). He’s implying that Hamlets love for her is only temporary and that she is just something …show more content…
By time everyone took a notice to Ophelia’s madness it was too late. In her showing this new characteristic she is yelling abruptly and signing songs. For instance here “How should I your true love know From another one? By his cockle hat and staff, And his sandal shoon” (4.5.28). Soon after this precious Ophelia is dead by scene seven, the Queen informs Laertes about what has happened. His reaction is as expected but without tears he says he will not shed them and he keeps his word and exits the
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...
He believed that Hamlet was only with her out of lust and Hamlet said that he wanted to marry her only so she would sleep with him. Laertes told her that Hamlet comes from a royal family and she does not, therefore Hamlet will not marry her, nor does he love her. Ophelia disregarded most of what Laertes had said about Hamlet. Right after that Polonius came to speak to Laertes before he had gone to England. They spoke briefly and Polonius gave him advice to follow. Before saying farewell, Laertes told Ophelia to remember what he had said. Curious of...
Laertes yells to Claudius “O thou vile King, give me my father.” (Act IV scene v l.117-118) right after he breaks the last door to the King and holds his sword against Claudius’s neck. Because of his high self-respect, Laertes does not care if it is the King of Denmark who killed his father, he decides to despite the belief at that time which is that everything the King does is correct. He believes that the King is not supposed to do whatever he wants to, or even get away from murder. If the King kills, then he is a murderer and he deserves to be punished in order to get justice for the deceased. Laertes sister, Ophelia, on the other hand takes no action when facing injustice. When her father forbids her to meet Hamlet, she responds that “[She] shall obey.” (Act I scene iii l.141) though that is not what she wants, she cannot question any decision that has been made by her father. Ophelia, as a lady in the Elizabethan era, has no rights and is not allowed to make her own decision, the only thing she can do is to obey her father and brother. The lack in rights caused Ophelia’s lack of self-respect and confidence which caused her inaction for she does not know what she is supposed to do when facing injustice. After all these years controlled and suppressed by her father and brother, she has lost her self-respect and doesn’t know how to make decisions for herself. So when her father died and
Before Laertes left for France, he gave Ophelia advice on her relationship with hamlet. Laertes tried to warn Ophelia on Hamlet’s real feelings and his true intentions towards her, and tells her to be a little wary of Hamlet and his affections. Hamlet’s feelings towards Ophelia seem to die after she rejects him. Not only his feelings, but his own appearance seems to decay after the rejection. He is described as being “Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other” (line 82). To make matters worse, Ophelia dies. Both Hamlet and Laertes are so shocked and distressed over her death, that they both decide to jump into her grave and begin to fight each other. Even though both Hamlet and Laertes hated each other, they both loved Ophelia deeply. Hamlet was obviously very infatuated with Ophelia, as too it hard at her death. Laertes on the other hand seemed to have more of a brotherly connection and bond with her, as was evident when he tried to advise her against
The significance of this scene is to portray the characterization of the three characters. Laertes appears to be a realistic individual who is genuinely concerned about his sister; he reasonably explains that his sister must be wary of Prince Hamlet since he is a royalty. In this scene Laertes appears to be much wiser than his father, Polonius, whom is also realistic yet too blunt. Polonius also warns Ophelia to stay away from Hamlet but he says it in more direct matters (I.iii.115-135). Ophelia on the other hand remains passive and follows the two men in her family’s directions. At this point, we are unsure whether her abeyance at the end of the scene (“I shall obey, my lord” Act 1 scene 3, 136)is out of politeness or because she is actually serious, but regardless, this shows her inferior position to men. It is well known that women were considered to be properties of the head man of the family (eg. Father) and therefore Ophelia does not have a choice but to follow her father’s advices on whether she should truly believes Hamlet’s intentions or not. Overall this scene highlights the persona of the three characters in the
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:
Her tragedy began with her brother. Laertes knew of Ophelia’s love relationship with Hamlet; however, he also knew that she was only the daughter or a courtier and Hamlet was a prince. In those days, princes were not allowed to marry inferior women. When Laertes was getting ready to leave on his trip to Paris, he advised Ophelia to “Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood: A violet in the youth of primy nature, forward, not permanent, sweet, and not lasting; the perfume and suppliance of a minute; no more.” (Hamlet) In other words, Laertes told his sister to con...
When reading the text, one can comprehend that Ophelia is caught in the middle between two opposite sides. Her family (father and brother) believe that Hamlet is a womanizer rather then the philosopher that he is. They also believe that he will use her in order to achieve his own purposes, and that he would take her precious virginity only to discard it because he would never be her husband. But, Ophelia's heart mesmerized by Hamlets cunning linguistics is set on the fact that Hamlet truly loves her or loved her, even though he swears he never did. In the eye of her father and brother, she will always be a pure, wholesome girl, an eternal virgin in a sense, (due to a parents nature to always see their offspring as a child) they want her to ascend into her stereotypical role in life as a vessel of morality whose sole purpose of existence is to be a obedient wife and a committed mother. However, to Hamlet she is simply an object used to satisfy and fulfill his sexual needs. He also seems to hold her at a distant which suggests that he may...
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 reader is left guessing on Hamlet’s true feelings for Ophelia through his various insults, sexual innuendos, and admitted desire. Hamlet’s claim, “God hath given you one face, and you / Make yourselves another.” (3.1.155-156) is laced with irony and hypocrisy given Hamlet’s own deception regarding true feelings. This proclamation comes at the end of a lengthy tirade against Ophelia and womankind in general for their conniving deceit leading men astray. The fact that Hamlet cannot see this duplicity in his very own actions shows the double standard he holds for females. Ophelia’s immediate reaction is one of shock and defense due to the aggressive nature of Hamlet’s attack. She calls out “O, woe is me!” (3.1.174) in distress to the ferocity of Hamlet and is unable to form a particularly coherent response akin to the ones seen against Laertes and Polonius. She does show her intelligence and rebellion from this assumption of power by Hamlet in her songs while Hamlet is gone. While many attribute her madness to the death of her father, a large portion of her instability should be attributed to Hamlet and his earlier actions. In her first introduction as insane she sings, “And I a maid at your window, / To be your Valentine. / Then up he rose and donned his clothes / And dropped the chamber door, / Let in the maid, that out a maid / Never departed more.” (4.5.55-60). Due to her references to sexuality and deceit the
The volume of works that Shakespeare wrote over the course of his lifetime was extensive. In that volume are stories that have influenced so many stories written later, stories that have influenced how many define things like love. Romeo and Juliet is perhaps his best-known work and defined western civilization's concept of love for generations. While slightly lesser known, Hamlet has had much the same degree of impact. This revenge tragedy truly defines the genre and opens up dialogues to many things, like madness. It is often the madness of Hamlet that is delved into but Ophelia too went mad in the end. While her father's murder at the hands of Hamlet undeniably contributed to her suicide, it was not the sole cause. Ophelia was driven to suicide by the way the men in her life treated her.
Sweet and innocent, faithful and obedient, Ophelia is the truly tragic figure in William Shakespeare's Hamlet. "Her nature invites us to pity her misfortune caused not by any of her own self-initiated deeds or strategies"(Lidz 138). Laertes tells us convincingly how young and vulnerable Ophelia is, (act I. iii.10) likening her budding womanhood's destruction from Hamlet to a process as "the canker galls the infants of the spring,/ Too oft before their buttons be disclosed, /And in the morn and liquid dew of youth / Contagious blastments are most imminent". "He advises her to stay away and she lovingly banters back, typically like a young teen, reminding him to act as he advises" (Campbell 104). We then learn more of how pure and innocent she is as her father counsels her (Act I.iii.90). Telling her that she is a "green girl" and to think of herself as "a baby" in this matter, he insists that she must stop seeing him.
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 ...
When family relationships are thought of they are thought as people showing love toward one another and everyone getting along. However, in William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, the relationships between family members are not like common family relationships. Whether a family member is trying to trying to kill one another or they are taking complete control over the other, the relationships in Hamlet will leave the reader questioning them until the end. Although in the beginning of Hamlet the relationships between family members can be questioned, it is clear at the end of the play how each family member feels about the other. In the play, Hamlet wants to seek revenge and kill his father’s brother who his married to his mother while his mother
Firstly, the castle of Elsinore is notable for its evocation of place where it initially begins to shape Ophelia’s character and create Ophelia’s imagination beyond her life of limitations. It is undisputable the love Ophelia and Hamlet once shared in their past relations. This is clearly evident when Hamlet jumps out from hiding at the graveyard and expresses his feelings for Ophelia proclaiming his love. “I lov’d Ophelia: forty thousand brothers could not, with all their quantity of love, make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?” (5.2. 270-72) Although Polonius, Ophelia’s father, instructs her to never see Hamlet again and to never trust his promises, she continues to honour Hamlet’s love and defend him to her father; “My Lord, he hath importun’d me with love in honourable fashion” (1.3. 110-11). Since, Ophelia is dependent on her father, and the men in her life; she now finds herself alone after his sudden death, which causes her grief and unhappiness (4.5.11-13). Ophelia’s distracted behaviour gives the impression that some great unhappiness has befallen her (Ibid). Claudius suggests it is a result from her father’s death; “Conceit upon her father” (4.5. 43). Ophelia’s abrupt behaviour shows the nature of her mind and her songs suggest tragic irony, since it is paradoxical to the Ophelia that is introduced at the beginning of the play; a sweet and innocent young girl, who obeyed her father and brother (1.3.90-98).