“The pangs of despised love” (3.1.80). Hamlet and Ophelia’s relationship in The Tragedy Of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare is a twisted and burdensome one. Hamlet often seems two-faced in his decisions toward Ophelia, promising marriage, yet revoking his selfless love soon after, only to proclaim it once more when it is too late. Ophelia is confused, caught in the middle of Hamlet’s antic disposition, her father’s caution and spying, and the king’s unlawfulness and hatred toward his own nephew. The attitudes and actions of others in the play scar Hamlet and Ophelia, who proceed to slowly poison their own actions toward those they love. It is unknown throughout the play if Hamlet’s love is true and faithful to Ophelia or not. …show more content…
Hamlet has promised that he and Ophelia will be wed. However, Laertes, Ophelia’s brother, and Polonius, Ophelia’s father, advise against seeing Hamlet anymore. They tell her that she should not let Hamlet “your chaste treasure open” (1.3.35). Laertes displays foreshadowing when saying “perhaps he loves you now… but you must fear… his will is not his own” (1.3.17-20), predicting Hamlet’s betrayal of his love towards Ophelia. Being a young woman in the kingdom, she obeys Laertes and Polonius. After learning the truth about his father’s murder, Hamlet decides to put on an antic disposition to figure out more about the king and plot revenge. He proceeds to show his crazy mentality on Ophelia first and goes to her chambers while …show more content…
Ophelia is forced to take part in spying on Hamlet, already displaying distrust. Hamlet takes back everything he had said previously, saying “I loved you not” (3.1.129). However, just before that he says “I did love you once” (3.1.125). Although saying these opposites may be Hamlet trying to still show Ophelia that he doesn’t mean what he’s saying or he’s following his antic disposition, this shows that their love might not have been true in the first place. Ophelia gives all of the gifts she received from Hamlet back, which shows that she is very upset. The tension after the argument affects both Hamlet and Ophelia. Hamlet goes to talk to his mother with anger and is harsh with her, which he was told not to do. Out of rage, Hamlet mistakes Ophelia’s father for the king and murders him. Even though he had no intention of killing Polonius, he does not have much regret because vengeance has taken over his state of mind. The queen states “this is the very coinage of your brain” (3.4.157), realizing just how absurd Hamlet has become. The combination of Hamlet Sr.’s death and the unsure love is wrecking Hamlet’s
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...
First there is the killing of Polonius. When he kills Polonius, the father of his girlfriend, he shows no sign of regret. No guilt. He is so caught up in his own little world of revenge, he doesn't even think of the fact that he just killed an innocent old man and the father of Ophelia. In fact, there is no point in the entire text in which he even mentions Ophelia. This just goes to show that he doesn’t truly care about Ophelia, which as state is the necessary component of love. The second deciding scene is that of Ophelia’s funeral. Hamlet has gone the whole text since the play in act three scene two without a word about Ophelia. Then *bang* Ophelia is dead and he's seeing her funeral. He observes as a distraught Laertes, Ophelia’s brother, throws himself into her grave in grief. Hamlet’s response to this is not a of shared sorrow but of competition. He starts by saying to Laertes “I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers could not with all their quantity of love make up my sum” (5.1.284-287). Rather than just grieve for her, he fights with her grieving brother about who loved her more. While this may seem like a loving gesture, there has been no other proof of his love for her throughout the play which make this seem a bit strange. It is as if he wants to have loved her so that he can have emotions that are more important than everyone else’s. Hamlet even accuses Laertes of just trying “to outface” him “with leaping in her grave” (5.1.295). Hamlet would actually be grieve the lose of Ophelia and not fighting over whose emotions matter more if he had truly loved
Living in an environment of deception and hostility, the reader can easily identify with Hamlet's anger. Most all compassionate audiences will be sympathetic to his plight. However, the origins of Hamlet's vehement actions toward his once beloved Ophelia can be debated from several different points of view. Whatever his reasoning may be, it is probably correct to assume that he regrets deeply every harsh world spoken toward Ophelia. He only realizes again what a beautiful and kind person she was- after her death.
Ophelia is a character in Hamlet that is chronically faithful to everyone else but herself. Ophelia is deeply in love with Hamlet, and she is certain that he loves her as well. This is clear from the assertions she makes in Hamlet’s defense: “My lord, he hath importuned me with love in honest fashion. And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord, with almost all the holy vows of heaven” (1795). Ophelia’s downfall emerges when she doubts her own feelings and beliefs about Hamlet, upon instruction and advice from her brother and father. Ophelia, a confident and intelligent woman, begins to rely on others to tell her what to think and how to act. “I do not know, my lord, what I should think” (1795). Upon Polonius request, and going against her own hearts desires, she starts to avoid Hamlet. “No, my good lord, but, as you did command, I did repel his letters and denied his access to me” (1806). By doing what her father advises and wishes Ophelia is no longer capable of making decisions for herself. The loss of Hamlet’s love and the death of her father leave her with confusion and doubts about her future. “Well, Go...
Throughout Shakespeare 's play it is clear that Ophelia and Hamlet were lovers but it is not entire certainty whether Hamlet loved Ophelia at the present time. His declaration of love in the written play could have been seen as an indication of his madness. In the film version Hamlet is seen hiding in the bushes while Ophelia 's funeral begins and once he discovers it is her he is overcome with grief to the point where Horatio has to hold him back (Hamlet). The pain on Hamlet 's face is apparent as well as his sanity. Another example of their relationship is in act 3 scene 1 after Hamlet finished his soliloquy he says the line “the fair Ophelia” (Shakespeare 4.1.97) while reading the play I assumed he said this line when he addressed her, and that he was pleasant to her until his madness took over and he became rude. In Doran’s adaptation however Hamlet spoke the line “the fair Ophelia” before she even saw him, he was speaking to himself with a tone of love and affection. Additionally, Hamlet remained pleasant to her until he turned and noticed the security camera (Hamlet). It was only then that Hamlet began to act mad and unpleasant towards Ophelia. This version gave a new depth to Hamlet’s madness and strengthens the idea that he was simply
Upon learning that Ophelia has allied herself with Polonius and Claudius, he loses his head and has an incredibly dramatic episode. He is initially honest and open with Ophelia, but his mood quickly changes when he learns they are being spied on. He questioned Ophelia’s motives by asking whether she was honest and fair. He breaks her heart upon the realization she is not on his side. He tells her that he once loved her, then their conversation spirals into nothing more than Hamlet hurling insults at his former love before storming out.
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:
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 first major action of the third act is the arranged meeting between Hamlet and Ophelia. During this meeting, Hamlet seems to turn on Ophelia, denying that he ever loved her. This apparent reversal of feelings towards Ophelia may appear as a peripeteia at first, but under closer examination will prove to be a continuation of Hamlet's pretense of madness. Hamlet is aware that Ophelia is being used to draw out information from him about the source of his insanity. This becomes evident when Hamlet inquires where Ophelia's father is. At the end of his soliloquy, Hamlet comments on Ophelia's beauty as he sees her approach. This illustrates that he still has affection for her, but in his current state o...
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 ...
Hamlet put pressure on Ophelia by expecting her to surpass his mother's shortcomings and be an epitome of womankind. He searched her innocent face for some sign of loving truth that might restore his faith in her. He took her mute terror for a sign of her guilt and found her to be a false person, like his mother. In his letter to her, he addressed the letter to "the most beautified Ophelia" and he terminated the letter with "I love thee best, O most best, believe it" (II, ii). He used the word "beautified" to display a sincere tribute, and it is apparent he still loves her. His attempts to win her affection are not triumphant. Ophelia is still too much under the influence of her father to question his wisdom or authority, and she has no mind of her own to understand how much she has made her lover suffer. No matter how much it pained her to not see Hamlet, all she could see in his present behavior is the madness that terrified her.
At the beginning of the play, Ophelia herself believes that Hamlet loves her. First of all, Laertes and Polonius had both heard about Hamlet professing his love for Ophelia. Being the typical protective brother and father, they cautioned Ophelia and told her to be very wary of
This play is about the troubles encountered by young prince Hamlet as he tries to seek revenge for his father?s murder. Hamlet discovers the murder of his father, as well as the adultery and incest committed by his mother and uncle. This results with Hamlet retaining a very embittered and cynical outlook on life. "Or that the Everlasting had not fixed His cannon 'gainst self-slaughter -- how weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world." (1.2.131-134). Throughout the play, Hamlet teaches the audience the depths of his depression through soliloquies. Hamlet not only regards the world with pessimism, but he also has suicidal feelings. Hamlet displays thoughts of self that questions the worth of living. The foremost cause for his exasperation and aggravation is the fact that his mother and his uncle, Claudius immediately got married right after his father?s death. His mother's actions seem to be what repulses Hamlet most as he yells, "frailty thy name is woman!" (1.2.146). Hamlet has developed a burning hate towards his mother and women in general. It is this fuming mind-set that is responsible for his terrible treatment towards dear, innocent Ophelia in Act 3.
Many Shakespearean plays feature the intricate relationships that exist between lovers: Romeo and Juliet, Beatrice and Benedick, Anthony and Cleopatra, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, Kate and Petruchio. However, the relationship that exists between Hamlet and Ophelia is much more complex and arduous to recognize than those that exist in most of Shakespeare’s other plays. The unique relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia paired with the tragic events that occur in the final scene pose this idea of what could’ve been had Ophelia and Hamlet engaged in an intimate and meaningful relationship, saving them both from their internal struggles which led them to eventual madness. Despite the fact that Ophelia and Hamlet’s relationship is not the typical