Hamlet Essay
After reading Shakespeare’s Hamlet, one may assume that it was King Claudius whom was responsible for the tragedy that befalls its characters. However, upon reevaluating the novel, one should realize that another character is to blame. Indeed, it was none other than Polonius, chief counselor of the king.
It all began with Polonius halting the correspondence between his daughter Ophelia, and Prince Hamlet. Polonius said, “I would not... from this time forth… have you so slander… as to give words or talk to Lord Hamlet” [Act 1 Sc.3 L.141-144]. In modern English, he just said that she is no longer allowed to speak to him. His reasoning was that she was too young and naïve to be with him [Act 1 Sc.3 L.110]. Ophelia obeyed her father’s
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This behavior concerned King Claudius, who then searched for an explanation from Polonius. He told the king that the cause of Hamlet’s lunacy was due to Ophelia, and her advised rejection of his letters. He says that Hamlet “fell into sadness” which lead him “into the madness wherein now he raves”
[Act 2 Sc.2 L.158]. They then decided to spy on the prince.
Consequently, Hamlet killed Polonius when he realized he was being spied on, mistaking him for the king. For this reason, Ophelia went crazy. She was later found at the bottom of a river. Furthermore, an angry Laertes returned from France, determined to avenge his father. Sharing a common interest, he and King Claudius devised a plan to poison Prince Hamlet. This plan, however, went horribly wrong.
First, the celebrating queen unknowingly drank the poison and called out, “The drink! The drink! O, my dear Hamlet! I am poisoned” [Act 5 Sc.2 L.340].
Second, Hamlet forced the king to drink the poison when he discovered that this was his plan. Third, Laertes died from a wound he had obtained from the poisoned rapier in the scuffle. Finally, Hamlet died when he drank the remaining poison, to speed up the effects of his contaminated
Polonius tells his servant to lie about what Laertes is actually doing in France to figure out what he is actually wanting to do, He tells he servant to speak ill around people to see if they know Laertes. Ophelia walks into the room to talk to her father Polonius after he sent his servant on a mission. Ophelia tells Polonius that Hamlet frightened her he was just staring at her, Polonius said they need to speak to the king about this. Polonius tells Ophelia that love is such a violent emotion, and it can corrupt and make people self-destruct. King Claudius asks to speak with two of Hamlets friends when they were going to school together, Claudius asks them if they could find out what has corrupted Hamlet into being a different person, they
Where hamlets actions justified? Did he really avenge is father? Well I don’t think so. Because of him Gertrude was treated very poorly and because of the got her killed, the treatment to Ophelia was not justified and it made her go crazy, he delayed the killing of the king which caused a lot of bad stuff to happen, but the killing of Claudius was justified because he avenged his father. So, the question are his actions justified?
Hamlet is a story about revenge and power, due to the recent death of the King of Denmark. The following events include madness, which leads to Hamlet killing King Claudius’ advisor, Polonius. Word about the death of his father got to Laertes who was in England. Laertes returned to Denmark to find his sister distraught and drove to madness. Shortly after his return, Ophelia is found dead by the cause of drowning.
He acted so crazy that he started blaming everyone else, and almost forgot about his anger towards Claudius. He acted so crazy towards the Queen, Ophelia and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern that he ended up hurting those people’s emotions, which led to Ophelia’s suicide as well. Hamlet showed us how not to live by not being himself. He may have wanted to kill Claudius and had all of the evidence to do so but acting like he was crazy was not who he was. This led to his tragic flaw which was his indecisiveness to kill Claudius when he had the chance.
Ophelia seemed to be Hamlet's’ girlfriend throughout most of the play, but turned mad after losing her father to the stabbing from Hamlet. Claudius talks about the fair Ophelia at her funeral and describes her insanity. “Poor Ophelia. Divided from herself and her fair judgement, without the which we are pictures or mere beasts” (Hamlet 4.5.91-93). Hamlet is dead, Ophelia is dead, Claudius is dead, Gertrude is dead, Rosencrantz is dead, Guildenstern is dead, and Laertes is dead.
The death of Polonius foretells future events that his mother may or may not be aware of before the time it happens. Finally, this scene provides a fascinating moment in which Hamlet takes first action in the vengeance of his father’s
Throughout the play Hamlet continues to act insane and even dies with the act continuing. Even after Hamlet gathers all the evidence that proves Claudius is the murder, Hamlet continues to behave in a strange way. When he mistakenly murders Polonius he does not react as a sane person would. This act enrages Laertes, who then wants to avenge his father’s death. Driven to madness by the murder of his father, Laertes, with the help of Claudius conspires to kill Hamlet.
Polonius wanted Hamlet to stay away from Ophelia, and he wanted to know if Prince Hamlet was suspicious of Claudius for King Hamlet’s murder. Polonius’s plan was originally
Ophelia’s character went through quite a large transformation. In the play her father tells her that she is to stay away from Hamlet and she readily agrees. In the movie Ophelia doesn’t disagree with her father but she also doesn’t agree just to please him. This shows that Ophelia isn’t easily persuaded, even by her own father. Despite her father’s warning about Hamlet, Ophelia met with him in secret at her apartment until her father found out.
Ophelia is like this because of Polonius’s manipulations. Polonius’ and Ophelia’s conversation in Act One demonstrates the results of his manipulations and shows Ophelia’s understanding of obedience to the audience. For whatever reason, Polonius does not want Ophelia to be in a relationship with Hamlet. So he stops their relationship by making Ophelia question herself and follows his orders. Polonius manipulates Ophelia by making her think that she invalidates her family’s honor, that she does not know anything, and that Hamlet is manipulating her among other things he says.
Furthermore, we haven’t seen Ophelia and Hamlet interact before this so we cannot know what their relationship was like, but we can make an educated guess that Hamlet never acted like this with her before based on the fact that she prays that he returns to his normal self in line 153. However, everything going through Hamlet’s mind is much more complex than what would be going through an insane person’s mind. To really understand Hamlet’s behaviour, it is necessary to look back at act one scene
Hamlet has come to see his mother, Queen Gertrude, and ends up stabbing Lord Polonius, which ultimately leads to his death. Lord Polonius’ final words include “O, I am slain!” Even though this provides a slight amount of comic relief to the reader, it has a reverse effect on Ophelia’s mental state. Her father’s death seems to be the potent punch in this fight because she officially goes mad after this final event. This is apparent in Scene IV Act I, when Laertes has come back to visit his sister and check on her well being.
Polonius chose to use his daughter Ophelia to spy on Hamlet during Act III Scene I. During this moment in the act Polonius was becoming increasingly interested in Hamlet and what he was doing. He desired to use Ophelia to assess Hamlet’s sanity and but while doing this it risked his own daughter’s sanity. Additionally this shows the immoral desires of Polonius and how he was truly looking out for his children’s best interest in the end and only desired to advance him in society. The reason that he used Ophelia to test Hamlet’s sanity was to assist King Claudius in killing Hamlet because Polonius wanted to seem powerful to
3.3.72-73), Hamlet says, as he is debating whether or not to kill the king as he prays and thinks to himself if he kills him now then the king will just go to heaven because he is praying. Because of him overthinking the murder of Claudius and not taking action at the time he was able to, he had created a domino effect of events. Hamlet finally followed through with his plan after a long time of thinking, but he had killed Polonius. Polonius’ murder led to Ophelia committing suicide and Laertes getting involved and wanting to venge on Hamlet for killing his
In Act III, scene i of The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare, readers will come upon Ophelia’s soliloquy. After Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have failed to find a reason as to why Hamlet is acting in a peculiar and mad way, Claudius is persuaded by Polonius that the reason for Hamlet’s madness is the broken romance between Hamlet and Ophelia. To prove this, Claudius and Polonius plan to spy on Ophelia’s meeting with Hamlet. During their conversation, Hamlet denies ever having loved her and curses her. Ophelia is left fretting over his sanity.