We experience her slide towards insanity in terms of the terrible predicament of her situation. It is also tragically ironic that the real cause or her madness is the murder of Hamlet's father, which has also driven Hamlet towards madness for revenge. Once Ophelia find that the father has been murdered by Hamlet, this pushes her over the edge and she loses contact with reality. This is portrayed in the pathetic nonsensical songs that she sings, which suggests that her loss of faith in Hamlet and the murder of her father have destroyed her senses. "He is dead and gone, lady, he is dead and gone..." (IV.V.29-30). The madness of Hamlet however is the centre around which the play revolves and is extremely complex to analyze briefly. Shakespeare portrays the young Hamlet as an intelligent man who is aware that he is surrounded...
His madness is rational and calculated, while Ophelia's insanity is emotional ands arises mainly for the inability to understand the changes in people whom she previously trusted and loved. The subplot of Polonius' murder and its affect on Ophelia therefore adds depth and structure to the main plot and Hamlet's feigned madness. There is also the more complex issue of whether, in the process of pretending to be mad, Hamlet in fact loses contact with reality and that the events that he initiates eventually drives him to a form of madness. The madness of both Ophelia and Hamlet and interrelated in that they are different dimensions of the larger tragedy of the play
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, --
.. O, woe is me, t' have seen what I have seen, see what I see!" (3.1. 116-164). The connotation is that her heart is breaking. This scene combined with her original startled outcry to Polonius in Act I further illustrates that Ophelia was in love with Hamlet, and that she did not meet him with ill intent despite the ulterior motives of everyone else. This further builds upon previous evidence
To act in a murderous, vengeful way that is contrary to his true nature, and to assume madness creates madness. At first, Hamlet suggests that vengefulness in a corrupt court is a kind of sanity, when he vows to put on an antic disposition, but he acts in a way that is more and more contrary to his moral nature as the play goes on, rebuking his mother against
He questions whether he should try to clear the court of corruption or just give up and end his life now. It is this emotional doubt that drives Hamlet to act deranged at times, but he overcomes it, and almost manages to answer the difficult questions posed in his life. In Act V, when calm returns, Hamlet repents his behavior (V, ii, 75-78) (Lidz, 164). In Lidz's book Freud is
After Hamlet has killed Polonius and Laertes has returned from Paris demanding satisfaction, Hamlet justly observes "by the image of my cause, I see the portraiture of his." It is the contrasts between these three characters which give significance to the parallelisms. The intelligent, sensitive Hamlet and the hot-headed Machiavellian Laertes perish on the same poisoned foil, leaving the kingdom to the cool-headed Norwegian, who has been a shrewder contriver
Hamlet Annotated Bibliography Cook, Patrick J. Cinematic Hamlet: the Films of Olivier, Zeffirelli, Branagh, and Almereyda. Athens, Ohio: Ohio UP. 2011. Print. This book focuses on the many versions of Hamlet that have been made for the silver screen. The play by William Shakespeare is one of the most frequently filmed works and each version of the story has a unique perspective. Director, screenwriter, and of course actor each influence the overall
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