Essay About Essay Hamlet And Melancholy Permits

Hamlet and Ophelia
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Hamlet and Ophelia
Melancholy, grief, and madness have pervaded the works of a great many
playwrights, and Shakespeare is not an exception. The mechanical
regularities of such emotional maladies as they are presented within
Hamlet, not only allow his audience to sympathize with the tragic
prince Hamlet, but to provide the very complexities necessary in
understanding the tragedy of his lady Ophelia as well. It is the poor
Ophelia who suffers at her lovers discretion because of decisions she
was obligated to make on behalf of her weak societal position. Hamlet
provides his own self-torture and does fall victim to melancholia and
grief, however, his madness is feigned. They each share a common
connection: the loss of a parental figure. Hamlet loses his father as
a result of a horrible murder, as does Ophelia. In her situation is
more severe because it is her lover who murders her father and all of
her hopes for her future as well. Ultimately, it is also more
detrimental to her c! haracter and causes her melancholy and grief to
quickly turn to irretrievable madness. Critics argue that Hamlet has
the first reason to be hurt by Ophelia because she follows her fathers
admonitions regarding Hamlets true intentions for their beginning
love. In Act 3, scene 1, line 91 Hamlet begins with his malicious
sarcasm toward her. “I humbly thank you, well, well, well,” he says
to her regarding her initial pleasantries (Johnson 1208). Before this
scene, he has heard the King and Polonius establishing a plan to deduce
his unusual and grief-stricken behavior. Hamlet is well aware that
this plan merely uses Ophelia as a tool, and as such, she does not have
much option of refusing without angering not only her busybody father
but the conniving King as well. Hamlet readily refuses that he cared
for her. He tells her and all of his uninvited listeners, “No, not I, I
never gave you aught” (lines 94-95). Some critics stress, as does J.
Dover Wilson, that Hamlet has a right to direct his anger to Ophelia
because even though many critics “in their sy! mpathy with Ophelia
they have forgotten that it is not Hamlet who has repelled her, but
she him” (Wilson 159). It is possible that Wilson does not see the
potential harm to Ophelia should she disobey her authority figures
(i.e. her father and her king). Furthermore, Ophelia cannot know “that
Hamlets attitude toward her reflects his disillusionment in his mother
. . . to her, Hamlets inconstancy can only mean deceitfulness or
madness” (Lidz 158). She is undeniably caught in a trap that has been
layed, in part, but her lover whom she does love and idealize. Her
shock is genuine when Hamlet demands “get thee to a nunnery” (line
120). The connotations of the dual meaning of “nunnery” is enough in
and of itself to make her run estranged from her once sweet prince, and
it is the beginning or her sanitys unraveling as well. Hamlets
melancholy permits him the flexibility of character to convey
manic-depressive actions while Ophelias is much more overwhelming and
painful. “Shakespeare is ambiguous about the reality of Hamlets
insanity and depicts him as on the border, fluctuating