Subjects:
the least of which is their madness. While Hamlet’s madness seems to
be feigned, Ophelia is truly crazy. The odd thing about their
predicament is that they each drive each other more fully into the
One of Hamlet’s most famous lines is when he tells the Queen: “Seems,
madam? Nay, it is. I know not ‘seems.’” Hamlet is saying that he does
not know what it is to pretend, he only knows what it is to be. This is the
main question surrounding Hamlet in the play, is he feigning his
madness, or is it real? After confronting the Ghost, Hamlet tells his friends
that he is going to act mad in public, and that they should not worry for
he is not really crazy at all. There is a common belief in these days that
when someone tells a lie and firmly believes it they start to live that lie.
Maybe this is true with Hamlet- he acts truly mad in public (even his
mother believes it) that possibly he acts mad in private too.
. . .
her father’s orders, Hamlet is angered and pretends that he never
wrote her letters or gave her any of his affection. She talks about her father without
knowing no one is listening, and eventually Ophelia drowns in a shallow
creek with no one to help her. This seems to be the
beginning of Ophelia’s sadness mostly because she really did love
Hamlet, and she believed that he loved her as much. Polonius demands that she not see
Hamlet any longer, and return all of his letters. In an aside Polonius says, “Though
this be madness, yet there is method in’t. These two
“young” nobles who once were in love, drove each other more fully into
madness, and could not help themselves.
In Act III, scene , Ophelia and Hamlet have their famous argument;
with Hamlet telling Ophelia to get to a nunnery, and Ophelia saying to
herself, “O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!” Shortly after that
(Act III, scene ii) the play begins, with Ophelia commenting, “’Tis brief,
my lord. Shortly after that Hamlet encounters Polonius in a corridor and
harasses him and says crazy things. ” Ophelia
has been talking to no one, and muttering things, and singing songs she
does not know the meaning of.
Hamlet does go about talking overmuch about writing and acting, and
even goes so far as to put a little vignette in the play of Hecuba, and
tells the actors how to do their job. When the wind is southerly I know
a hawk from a handsaw. to repel Hamlet’s letters, Hamlet enters
Ophelia’s room and looks at her with such a piteous and saddened
face that even Ophelia begins to think there is something wrong with
him. ” And Hamlet replies, “As a woman’s love. ”
In the beginning Hamlet says he does not know how to pretend, so one
could argue that either he was lying and is a very good play-actor with
his madness; or he really does not know how to act and is truly mad.
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