Extra credit question
Ophelia's crazy sing-songiness in Act 4:5 is very significant. Often in Shakespeare's plays he includes characters like the "fool" or the "clown" who on the surface appear dense (or in this case, insane) but there is hidden meaning and much significance within their words. How does Ophelia fit this description of "the fool." Give specific examples/references/line #'s. Anyone may respond for 1,2,or 3 extra credit points (depending on the brilliance/insightfulness of your response) attached to their next batch of logs. Oh, and you can't repeat something someone else has already blogged...duh.
posted by Mrzhire at
4:39 PM
5 Comments:
i can't believe i'm the first post again...at 7:41 PM.
Her foolishness appears, from what i've seen, through the somewhat juvenile verses of her song. It sounds like something i would hear in a nursery rhyme: "he is dead and gone, lady / he is dead and gone; at his head a grass-green turf, / at his heels a stone." (34-37). The repetition of the first line in line two gives it that nursery rhymey tone. However, these words are quite significant because they drill into the audience that this "new Hamlet" is not the same as the Hamlet Ophelia loved. That Hamlet is dead and gone.
Feel free to help me out if I'm mistaken guys.
-Sreyas
I think Ophelia is the sanest (is that a word?) one in the court. She represents the craziness in the kingdom, and the disruption of balance in the royal line. She, as a woman, internalizes all of her pain for her father's death, for Hamlet's betrayal, her brother's absence and her own hopelessness, and in the end she has a cathartic purging (which is redundant) in which she let's out everything she has been covering up. She makes blunt references to her and Hamlet's sexual relations (basically confessing it to EVERYONE!) lines 59-67 she talks about a girl saying no to a man until he marries her, and the man responding by saying he wouldn't have gone to bed with her if "thou hadst not come to my bed." (67)
Then she comes back and gives everyone flowers (possibly imaginary) to represent their character. She gives someone, probably her brother, rosemary and pansies which are both for love and rememberance (lines 179-181) so he doesn't forget her and Polonius. Then, I think she moves on to the queen and gives her fennel, columbines, rue (she keeps another for herself, emblem of repentance, or remorse), and a daisy. All of which stand for guilt, flattery, unchastity, ingratitude, faithlessness and probably more. I assumes she gave them to the queen because that would support her role as a 'fool' who bares the truth, and shows that the queen is unfaithful, not chaste, and guilty for what she did.
After Ophelia let's everything out, she goes and dies, because Shakespeare didn't have a role for her anymore.
I love Ophelia, although she still should have had a spine.
~Natalia
*Applause*
4:5 really struck me as quite significant and interesting when I read it, as it shows a unique parallel between Hamlet and Ophelia, echoing the theme of "madness" present throughout the play. Both characters are perceived as mad during the course of play, and both characters deal with severe emotional trauma, coinciding with the onset of such dementia (Hamlet loses his father and has to witness his murderous uncle take his old kingdom and wife, while Ophelia struggles to comprehend the murder of her beloved father by her lover Hamlet). However, Shakespearian characters seem to have a distorted view of what real insanity is; instead of uttering true nonsense, the "mad" characters are empowered to reveal their emotions, something not often seen in the Shakespearian world of illusion and falseness. I think therefore that "sane" characters like Gertrude, Claudius, and Laertes accuse these professions of truth to be madness because they come so harshly into conflict with their own inner motivations and perceptions.
Gertrude thinks Hamlet is mad in 3:4 because he confides in her the truth of Claudius, shrouded in the emotional turbulence represented by the ghost's appearance (or lack thereof). Likewise, Ophelia is considered mad when she expresses her pain and confusion over recent events including her brother, Hamlet, and Polonius. She sings her misery to the others, and such true sadness is deemed madness. "His beard was as white as snow/ All flaxen was his poll./ He is gone, he is gone,/ And we cast away moan./ God 'a mercy on his soul" (218-223) While this seems to me a rather obvious confession of sorrow, Laertes sees Ophelia's actions throughout the scene as a horrible madness instead of her grief and reevaluation process. "Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!/ O heavens, is't possible a young maid's wits/ Should be as mortal as an old man's life?" (182-184)Of course, Ophelia's actions can't be described as "normal", as she walks around in song, changing from subject to subject. However, her meaning is clear: she's in pain. Perhaps she, like Hamlet, pretends to be mad or goes along with accusations of madness so that she can concentrate on her inner struggle in relative peace. Perhaps, in her grief, she has cast off the submissive shell previously seen and emerged as one who is able to speak her mind and share her feelings. Perhaps the true Ophelia is "crazy", but not in the way we perceive craziness. Her madness is simply the rush of true emotion coming to the surface, sparked by the recent occurances. Similarly, perhaps Hamlet's madness is just the progression of his feelings of revenge, replacing his self doubting ways, not truly his own.
Another interesting side note to consider is the use of song in the scene. The sane characters seem quite put off by Ophelia sing-song ways. However, they are the most revealing lines within the scenes, as the present clear metaphors for Ophelia's feelings. She sings about her grief over the death of her father. She also sings about her relationship with Hamlet, and how she feels discarded and alone, both sexually and emotionally. "The he rose up and donned his clothes/ And dupped the chamber door./ Let in the maid, that out a maid/ Never departed more" (57-60). These songs, which contrast so heavily with the other characters' normal behavior, are seen as symptoms of madness, but really reveal untainted truth about emotions. This use of theatrical presentation to portray truth is also demonstrated earlier in the play, in the mock play of 3:2. The mock play clearly shows the murder of King Hamlet, and Claudius's subsequent claim of his brother's kingdom and wife. Shakespeare seems to use this motif of theatre and song to contrast from "reality" in order to fully describe it, just as madness is deemed by the as behavior radically different than the norm. Both the madness and the theatrics are used to convey ultimate truth.
I saw Ophelia's madness as a direct correlation to Shakespearean time. During this time class structure was crucial. A violation in it caused violent disturbances in the heavens, nature, and just overall unnatural behavior. The fact that Ophelia's madness happens directly after Hamlet kills Polonius shows how Hamlet disrupts order in class structure. Ophelia acting crazy is Shakespeare's way of showing that disruption in order has occurred. Ophelia fits the description of the fool by being this unnatural disturbance and a sort of warning to the rest of the characters. By restating past events such as “He is dead and gone, lady;”-line 36(death of Polonius) she restates all the bad that has happened, what lead to her insanity, and what is to come. “At his head a grass-green turf”-line 37, seems to reflect more on the death of King Hamlet showing how she is almost gathering all these horrible events to lead to terrible things, she is almost like an omen. “ ‘Before you tumbled me, You promised me to wed.’”-line 67, shows how Ophelia seems to be putting an omen upon Hamlet. By not keeping his promise of love, bad things are now going to happen to Hamlet.
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