..has the accent of command with her son...witty and perceptive about Polonius...she is not stupid at her job: there she gives out and reserves herself in good proportion." (Pennington 160) Gertrude's performance in the court shows Branagh makes a commitment as a director to giving the female characters of the play individualistic integrity beyond their ability to mirror different Oedipal aspects of the central protagonist's development. "There isn't an iota of sexual energy or tension in Hamlet's confrontation with his mother," unlike Oliver's version, where a bed is featured in the confrontation scene between Hamlet and his mother in Act IV, Scene 3. (Rosenberg, 1996) Julie Christie's Gertrude is morally conflicted about what she has done, and increasingly aware that she might have married a murderer after the confrontation of the closet scene. But Oliver's Gertrude is simply infatuated with her son. She is more physically demonstrative towards him than she ever is towards Claudius, even before the confrontation of Act IV. Moreover, the guilt Gertrude expresses during Oliver version, when she says "Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul;/And there I see such black and grained spots/As will not leave their tinct," results in a complete reversal of her sympathies towards Claudius. (IV.3) Julie Christie's Gertrude breaks from Claudius after Ophelia's death, and defiantly but innocently drinks the poisoned beverage. But in the Oliver version, Gertrude's love for her son is so overwhelming she is driven to suicide out of guilt. In Act V "Olivier also introduces what I believe is an innovation at the end -- the implication that Gertrude (the marvelous Eileen Herlie) realizes the wine is poisoned and purposely drinks it to rescue Hamlet," instead of merely pouring it to the side...
(Dashille, 1999) Out of guilt for what she has done, Gertrude, not Ophelia wishes to die -- yet another validation of Hamlet's perspective upon the world of the court in the Oliver version.
Hamlet's attitude towards the other female characters in the play, such as Ophelia is shaped by the distrust of women that is engendered by the mother's actions. Many critics have noted the strange and extreme attitude that Hamlet has towards women in general. As one critic notes, ...there is a distinctive pattern in Hamlet's language and behaviour whenever he is thinking about or dealing with Ophelia and Gertrude in fact, Hamlet's
Heaven and earth! Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him as if increase of appetite had grown by what it fed on: and yet, within a month, -- Let me not think on't, -- Frailty, thy name is woman! -- a little month; or ere those shoes were old With which she followed my poor father's body Like Niobe, all tears; -- why she, even she, --
" Calling their marriage incestuous and wicked draws attention to the depth of feeling gnawing away at Hamlet, the complex emotions that drive his actions throughout the course of the play. Hamlet perceives their union as being against divine law by using words like "incestuous" and "wicked." The use of several mythological allusions during the soliloquy also underscores Hamlet's detachment from reality: Hamlet refers to Hyperion, satyrs, Niobe and Hercules. Furthermore,
"So excellent a king, that was to this Hyperion to a satyr" (Shakespeare, William) is a Shakespearian juxtaposition used to compare Old Hamlet with Claudius. Hamlet alludes to Hyperion, the God of Light who represents not only honor and virtue, but also nobility, which are all traits Hamlet saw in his own father. The half-human, half-beast satyr creature represents hedonism and excess, similar to the way Hamlet regards Claudius.
trace development Hamlet's Identity play. If choose option, define "identity" clear ways extent Destroying Hamlet's Identity The titular character in William Shakespeare's well noted play Hamlet has fascinated audiences and literary critics for quite some time. In order to understand his characterization and the development of his identity throughout this work, one must fully understand the situation with which this young man is presented at the outset of the play. Hamlet,
However, Hamlet possesses far more awareness about his own weaknesses, and despite his early doubts, he also doubts the ghost: "The spirit that I have seen/May be the devil: and the devil hath power/to assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps/Out of my weakness and my melancholy, / as he is very potent with such spirits, / Abuses me to damn me" (II.5). Hamlet constructs a test to make sure
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