But he does. While Hamlet slowly is driven mad by visits from the ghost of his father and the scheming plots of his uncle Claudius, the one thing that actually keeps Hamlet focused and centered are his feelings for Ophelia. Hamlet’s seemingly unreasonable actions and questionable motives toward her are all part of a ruse to fool everybody at court and actually protect her from being used as leverage by the murderous King Claudius. There are several moments where Hamlet professes his love for Ophelia in moments where he didn’t have to, which in my opinion point to where his heart really lies. Let’s explore the moments within the text where Hamlet actually used his smarts to trick the other conniving characters into thinking that he didn’t love Ophelia and was going insane instead.
Hamlet was trying to be clever with Polonius as he kept asking him questions that he already knew the answers to such as “…have you a daughter” pretending that he does not know that Ophelia is his daughter. Hamlet was trying to confuse Polonius, making him think he was mad and trying to make Polonius look like a fool in front of the audience. Polonius then asks “…what do you read my lord?” and Hamlets response was “words, words, words.” Then he completes later on saying “Slanders sir, for the satirical rogue says here that old men have grey beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging think amber and plum-tree gum, and that they have a plentiful lack of wit…for yourself sir should be old as I am, if like a crab you could go backward”, here we see Hamlets cleverness in insulting Polonius as he calls him old and he has a lack of understanding. Hamlet seems to be scaring the Polonius as Polonius starts stepping back as Hamlets steps near him. Then at the end, Hamlets says “These tedious old fools” which is calling Polonius directly an old fool without trying to hide it as he did before.
Despite this, we must consider that Prospero and Miranda initially took on the role of caring and educating Caliban in replace of his Mother and Miranda endeavours to scold Caliban for being ungrateful regarding her attempts to educate him in Act 1 Scene 2 - “When thou didst not, savage, / Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like / A thing most brutish, I endowed thy purposes / With words that made them known.” From this, we can gather that Shakespeare is attempting to argue the futility in humans attempting to help one another through Caliban’s rebellion and failure to adopt a moral stance which is another criticism of human nature. It’s possible to consider how the protagonist in Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus is also unable to take a moral stance when he willingly sells his soul to the devil in return for power and knowledge. Rather than utilising this power in an effective way, he chooses to merely abuse it for things like
So far it appears to be that the Prince, Capulet, and Tybalt don’t know how to handle situations. This each has their own tragic flaw that adds to the story and will contribute to the downfall of Romeo and Juliet. It is in this scene that we really see the personalities of Tybalt and Capulet and how they will affect the story line. If Tybalt and Capulet were never to have the private conversation, then we would never see them as they truly are and would never quite understand their personalities. It is said that the behind the scenes is what is real as opposed to the play that is shown.
How does Polonius react to the news of Hamlet’s strange behavior? · He thinks Hamlet is just mad because Ophelia dissed him. 3. What evidence of Hamlet’s affections for Ophelia exists? · He tells Ophelia he loves her and does not love her, thinks she should never have trusted him but wants her to go away to a nunnery for her own protection.
This is because they focus on different elements of it and, where reality and illusion are vehemently pivotal to Albee’s text, Woolf has other focuses other than truth in writing. Woolf argues that truth is necessary in fiction and that it is the writers’ duty. Whereas Albee examines, through personal relationships, the importance of facing reality- irrespective of how painful the truth is. Woolf’s writing is influenced by a post WWI perspective and fuels her realisation that fiction as it was written before the war cannot be written in the same way because of the tragedies inflicted upon society. War inflicted horrors change society’s notion of reality and therefore in a post WWI context Wolf argues that the romantic illusion of 19th century poetry cannot be reproduced.
Moreover, the different mediums enable the audience to explore the performative nature of identity and the individualistic nature of ambition and how the different contexts respond to and portray this. Ambition and identity in Richard the Third are overwhelmingly portrayed in a negative light, ultimately resulting in dire consequences; in an Elizabethan context individualism and ambition reflected a person striving to grasp what was not due to them - ultimately, opposing God’s will. Richard, in the play, is represented as both villain and protagonist. We are made aware of Richards duplicitous nature and his evil aspirations as early as Act 1 Scene 1 where he states “I am determinèd to prove a villain” a self referential (and metadramatic in nature) pun which brings about questions of determinism and free will, themes that are explored throughout the play; there is ambiguity around whether or not Richard actually has autonomy over his nefarious deeds, which he goes about plotting. In keeping with his Elizabethan context, Shakespeare can not be seen to oppose the chain of being, the hierarchical chain of the period where a king was at the top,
Dominate or Dominated: The Women of Hamlet The word that best describes the women in Shakespeare’s play, “Hamlet,” is dominated. Ophelia not only allows others to dictate her relationship with Hamlet, but she also allows them to use her as a pawn to plot against him. Gertrude shows her dependence upon males by her quick marriage to her dead husband’s brother, and she allows others to use her deceitfully in order to get to Hamlet, as well. Through these examples, it is evident that although they each have strong opinions, Gertrude and Ophelia play subservient roles to the men in their lives and require the need for men to show them what to think, as well as how to feel. In “Hamlet,” Ophelia’s introduction to the audience provides the foundation for her role throughout the rest of the play.
Shakespeare's Presentation of Othello as Responsible for his Own Downfall Shakespeare’s Othello consists of the themes betrayal, love and dishonesty. At the centre of this play is the tragic downfall of Othello at the hands of his so called friend Iago. In this essay I will be discussing the reasons for and against Othello being responsible for his downfall through looking at critical interpretations of his character and actions. In some ways you could say that Othello was highly responsible for his own downfall as he was easily manipulated by Iago showing him to be gullible and naïve. Iago manipulates Othello by making him suspicious through inference, “Ha I like not that”.
“Madness is a painful and necessary path to self knowledge” Is this true in King Lear and Macbeth? In order to assess accurately whether ‘madness’ is the necessary path to self-knowledge we must first consider the starting point of both King Lear and Macbeth’s journey. Once we have analysed the path of events we can then judge whether they were indeed painful for each character. Throughout the development of both plays, the protagonists King Lear and Macbeth experience a significant change in character as a result of experiences derived from a series of aberrant events. Consequently, they achieve a certain degree of self awareness and knowledge that they did not possess before.