Hamlet: A Write-up of Willie’s Wonderful Word-Work
...n offers to “loose his daughter to [Hamlet]”, hardly the actions of a compassionate father. This expression would only usually be used in an agricultural context, as in loosing a cow to a bull. Its use here may suggest that he expects Ophelia to be sexually assaulted by Hamlet. Act III Study Question: Does Claudius' soliloquy revise or compound your opinion of this character? Looking carefully at the speech allows us to see the Claudius’ evil side. He knows he has sinned. He knows that his sins are so terrible that he is very likely to be damned for them. Instead of consecrate himself from the sins, he asks to “be pardoned and retain th'offence", a very unholy request.. The King wants God to pardon him for his crimes without giving up anything. Claudius tries to have his cake and eat it, but he must realize that a truly righteous heart does not repent out of fear of hell, but out of remorse for grieving the lord. He is not at all repentant, he just doesn’t want to pay the price for his sin. So, Claudius knows that this desirable state of affairs will not come to pass. This is why he finishes the soliloquy attempting to pray for the strength to repent properly. The final lines of the scene where Claudius tells us that he has been unable to pray are not simply an ironic joke about Hamlet's haplessness. Rather, they show us that the King's love for his ill-gotten gains outweighs his fear of damnation. The soliloquy compounds the opinion of Claudius as an evil, sinning character. Act IV Study Question: Why has Ophelia gone mad? How might this be proven? Ophelia has gone mad because an extreme amount of stress has overwhelmed her. Her bedfellow renounces his ever loving her, his father uses her as a puppet and her brother criticizes her love life. Ophelia simply has too heavy a burden for her mental shoulders to deal with. The unnamed gentleman at the opening of scene five tells us that Ophelia is mad. He says she speaks much of her father and then: “Her speech is nothing, Yet the unshapèd use of it doth move The hearers to collection. They yawn at it, And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts...” (IV.v.7-10) The man means that people are trying to make sense of Ophelia’s nonsensical ramblings by applying her words wherever they see fit. This statement seems to be crucial to understanding how madness is presented in this play. When Hamlet and Ophelia are thought to be insane, their observers try to interpret the reasons for their insanity. Act V Study Question: What developments in Hamlet's character are presented through story of what happened on the boat? A boat sets sail from Denmark to the far off land of land of England where Hamlet is being led to his demise. Hamlet's character, following his realization of his impending death has a noticeably sudden change of characteristics in this Act as he does away with his deceitful counterparts and makes his way home. Our normally passive main character, Hamlet, has a sudden change in his attitudes as he explains to his friend Horatio of his trip. It isn't until Hamlet realizes that he is being sent to England by orders of King Claudius to have '…[his] head struck off…' (Act V, scene ii, 26) that he becomes more of a heroic active character. This normally passive aggressive character who has been seen as timid to fight and seek revenge now becomes an enraged and witty hero. Quickly he devised a plot on the ship to put the note '…bearers to sudden death…' (Act V, scene ii, 50). Hamlet's more common character would simply go into a shallow melancholy state where he sulks about his impending doom. However, this is not the case here. He creates an authentic looking forgery that is sure to lead these deceitful counterparts to their death. This is a cleverly devised plan by our hero Hamlet. Hamlet even admitted that he has was used to '…a baseness to write fair, and labored much how to forget that learning…' (Act V, scene ii, 37-38). He states here that he believes that it was very vulgar to write in such a way and that he had tried hard to forget the art, but he was willing to do so in an attempt to kill. It is clear from Hamlet's statements in Act V that he has a more developed character that has strayed from his passive ways. These new characteristics allow Hamlet to seek vengeance without remorse or guilt against those that have betrayed him. Key Scene in Hamlet: The Ghost Was Right- Act 3, Scene 2 In Act Three, Scene Two, Hamlet arranges a play that will allow him to determine if Claudius poisoned his father, and...