Claudius explained “this is the poison of deep grief. It springs from her father’s death… they come not single spies but in battalions”(4.5.80-84). claudius explains the reason for Ophelia’s insanity is the grief she is experiencing. Because she is innocent has never experienced this type of tragedy before she feels it like a giant army attacking her. Ophelia’s innocence is broken when her father dies because she now sees the world differently than she did before.
Hamlet is the neither the hero nor the villain of his story- he is simply a victim, a young man slowly losing his grip on sanity over the course of the play. Many of Hamlet 's traits may appear to be weaknesses but they are, at second glance, strengths which aid him in his attempt to do away with Claudius. His refusal to murder the "incestuous, murderous, damned Dane" as he prays in Act 3, Scene 3 was a wise decision. If the prince had indeed killed the king he would have been immediately
However, his inability to see past the witches’ equivocations—even as he utilizes the practice himself—ultimately leads to his downfall. Sometimes, equivocations in Macbeth are meant kindly, as when Ross tries to spare Macduff’s feelings by telling him that his wife and son are “well.” Macduff initially takes this to mean that his family is alive and healthy, but Ross means that they are dead and in heaven. More often than not, though, such ambiguous statements lead to harm. The witches’ deceptive prophecies are perhaps the most destructive instances of
Williams Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, describes the tragic death of King Hamlet, whose son becomes very depressed and impacted by the death of his father, causing him to plan revenge honoring his father’s death.The son, Hamlet, constantly is mourning his father and is depressed about how no one seems to be mourning for him. This causes Hamlet to lose his relationships with people in his family because he keeps to himself, rather than voicing his suffering to others in effort to heal. This inhibits his recovery and perpetuates his depressive state. Malcolm Gladwell disagrees with Hamlet’s way to handle grief and suggests a more proactive way to improve their situation. Gladwell in his piece, David and Goliath Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants, suggests people should use their negative situation to their advantage.
A tragic flaw refers to “the character defect that causes the downfall of the protagonist of a tragedy,’ according to Dictionary.com. Another one of Shakespeare’s most notable tragedies is Hamlet. After reading the play, it is evident that the protagonist in the play has an immense tragic flaw: Hamlet is unable to make decisions, thus unable to take action. Hamlet has
Only nasty weeds grow in it now” (Shakespeare 1.2.132-134). In this example, Hamlet is currently talking to himself after a conversation with his mother and the current king, . Hamlet is presenting that his family has now gone wild, and that no one is capable of taking care of all the bad that is happening. Hamlet puts the blame on Gertrude because Hamlet knows that his mother started this nonsense and now there is no help to the situation. Another example of hate is when Shakespeare writes, “Yet even so, within a month of my father’s death… crying like crazy—even an animal would have mourned its mate longer than she did!—there she was marrying my uncle, my father’s brother”( Shakespeare 1.2.
So, the question are his actions justified? First, I do not think hamlets acts were justified because of the treatment Gertrude had. According to Doc A: The ghost says not to blame her and get revenge on his uncle but hamlet did blame her and she already remarried after just 1 month of being with the new king Claudius. According to Doc C: Hamlet was speaking in a very harsh way to Gertrude and she said “say no more these are like daggers in my heart”. Then Hamlet (thinking it was the king) stabs Polonius through the curtain.
While Hamlet is hesitant Laertes is brash and impulsive. He even states that in his confrontation with King Claudius “Let come what comes, only I 'll be revenged Most thoroughly for my father.” (4.5.148-154) Laertes does not do much thinking when it comes to avenging his father. The opposite is said about Hamlet who spends too much time contemplating whether he should avenge his father. They both were in the same situation but went about it very differently. In the final confrontation between Claudius, Laertes and Hamlet their colliding motives leads to the death of each person.
The tragic flaw is the main cause of the hero’s downfall at the end of the story. Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ conforms to this idea, as Prince Hamlet has a tragic flaw; his indecisiveness and tendency towards melancholic reflection. This is particularly evident during Act III, scene iii, as Hamlet has a chance to slay his murderous uncle in order to gain revenge for his father’s death, but in the end cannot decide upon committing the murder due to his wavering nature and he eventually misses his chance. By choosing to create Hamlet as an imperfect person with such an evident flaw, Shakespeare ensures that the audience is able to relate and feel empathy for the protagonist, which would not have been the case when Hamlet would have had an utopian
Ophelia in Hamlet is being mistreated by her father and by the characters around her. She suffers from extreme cruelty by her own father Polonius. He is the worst image of a father because he disrespects, controls and manipulates his own daughter for his own whims (Dorn, 1999). For example, he orders Ophelia to participate in uncovering the thoughts of Hamlet "...Walk you here… Read on this book that shows such exercise may color your loneliness"(III.i:41-46) in this excerpt, he orders her to pretend to read from a book in order to make it more reasonable to be alone when she meets Hamlet. Obviously, she follows exactly what her father tells her to as she replies to his orders "I shall obey my lord"(I.iv:136).