Felix Cole English 10 H Monica Espinasse Barbed Words Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet evokes a world where a nation can be seen as a diseased body and language can be used as a lethal weapon. Madness, defined in the dictionary as, “engaging in actions that are senseless or foolish”, is an issue that multiple characters deal with throughout the play. Many would say that Hamlet’s actions are very irrational, but everything he says and does eventually helps him achieve his desires. Despite how things seem Hamlet is an intelligent character who ultimately is in his right mind. The death of one’s father and a ghostly visitation thereafter are events that would challenge the sanity of anyone.
He had the never ending blackness and the physical pain he had caused on himself as reminder and as punishment. Oedipus' physical blindness was just as painful as his blindness to the truth. Both were intertwined in each other. Jocasta's blindness was different then Oedipus'. She knew about the prophecy, but she thought Oedipus was dead.
• It underscores Macbeth’s greatest mistake, above and beyond committing Regicide. Unnerved by the Weird Sisters’ prophesy, he seeks to ensure his personal safety by neutralising his – purported - greatest threat. In so doing, he invites calamity upon his own head, “All as the weird sisters promised”, to echo the long-dead Banquo. In terms of narrative, the scene is straightforward. Macduff, to emphasise his contempt for the “tyrant”, has fled to England, inadvertently exposing his family to danger.
He comes to understand the weakness of human nature at the same time when Gloucester comes to understand which son is really good and which one is bad at the very moment of his blinding. Gloucester’s physical blindness symbolizes the metaphorical blindness that affects both Gloucester and King Lear. The parallels between the two men are made very clear to the audience: both are blind to the truth, both have loyal and disloyal children and both end up banishing the loyal children while making the wicked ones their heirs. Only when Gloucester has lost his sight and Lear has gone mad does each realize the errors they’ve made and who should be held accountable. Betrayal rears its ugly head in more ways than one in a tale about two men blinded by false acts of love.
In each name, Torvald used the word “little”, as if to belittle Nora emotionally and intellectually to show his power and superiority over her as if she was his child instead of his wife. Torvald also took joy in showing off his manhood that fed his pride of the man of the house by pride fully hoping that Nora would be in trouble and he would be the knight in shining armor. He went as far as to say “Nora, I have often wished that you might be threatened by some great danger, so that I might risk my life’s blood, and everything, for your sake.” (1081). No man wishes for a great danger to fall upon their wives, but in that statement, Torvald tried to show off his manhood and “wished” for a great danger to fall upon Nora. Although Torvald talks a big game, he is going to get exactly what he wished for.
The difference between the two is that O’Brien believes that he himself suffers from mental insanity while it is Hamlet’s mother and his step father that believes its Hamlet who is insane. 2. Hamlet is perceived as mad by his fellow Danes because he plays a ruse to disguise his plot to kill the king while O’Brien believes that he himself is crazy because he does not want to go to a war he does not support and that tons of Americans didn’t support. 3. Near the middle of each story the characters start to change their opinions slightly; Hamlet starts to believe he is actually becoming insane and O’Brien starts to believe that he may have done what’s right.
Under normal circumstances banishment is viewed as a punishment and as a big inconvenience. However, for the characters in King Lear this is not the case. This first becomes apparent when King Lear banishes Cordelia, his daughter, from his property and denies her of her inheritance. His intent is that she should become penniless and worthless. Fortunately for Cordelia, the King of France still finds her appealing as ever, if not more appealing, and they wed.
Naivety and blindness can cause extreme damage in a person’s life. King Lear favors the deceitful children Goneril and Regan, over Cordelia, the honest one. The king’s appeal to empty flatter and his blindness to the truth lead to him making unwise decisions, which ultimately jeopardize his relationship with his daughters. Neville Newman criticizes this topic by stating “the test of love to which he submits them is meaningless, as evidenced by the apportioning of the land before all three have spoken. Moreover, the older sisters implicitly inferior status in his affections is immediately obvious to the member of the court in attendance.” (Newman 1) Lear does not realize that he is destroying his relationship with his daughter Cordelia, but also he is not realizing that Goneril and Regan’s mischief will lead him into insanity, which later causes the loss of father-daughter bond in the play.
Shakespeare incorporated the theme of madness to serve a motive for Hamlet in order to deceive others. Hamlet planned everything from what he was doing to what he was going to do. Hamlet did in fact pretend to be mad, just so he could follow through on his plan to avenge his father’s death. He acted like he was mad because he did not want to directly kill Claudius, because he wanted to make him suffer. Hamlet also knew that he could not tell anyone that Claudius has murdered his father or that he had seen the ghost of his father because no one would believe him.
Atticus told Jem that Mrs.Dubose was the "bravest person" he ever knew. Jem couldn't understand his own father. Why would he admire a mean old lady, while everyone in Maycomb hated her? This actually showed that Atticus is a real thinker. He didn't act like everyone else, trying to hide away from Mrs.Dubose because she's mean on the outside.