Does Hamlet Love Ophelia Research Paper

Does Hamlet Love Ophelia? Love comes to mind when the topic of Shakespeare comes up. However, there is no such thing as a “Happily Ever After”. Unlike fairy tales, Shakespeare’s stories end in tragedy. William Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, is based on a son of a king who is commanded by his father’s ghost to avenge his murder, Hamlet, however, becomes mad and it affects everyone. Aside from that, the story of Hamlet also includes a love story between him and Ophelia. The madness that affects and interferes with their love confuses readers, leading them to question, whether Hamlet does love Ophelia? He does love Ophelia but his revenge is more important to him than love.

Hamlet’s need for revenge over powers his love for Ophelia because he does

She is horrified by his behavior. Ophelia tells her father, Polonius, about how Hamlet came to her room. Polonius begins to become more aware of both Hamlet and Ophelia, and he blames Hamlet’s madness due to his love for his daughter, Ophelia. In the book, Ophelia quotes, “And with a look so piteous in purport as if he had been loosed out of hell to speak of horrors-he comes before me.”(Act 2. sc.1. 91-4) by stating this Ophelia is describing the way hamlet look when he came into her room. Her father in return replies back, “Mad for thy love?”(95). Polonius wonders if Hamlet is mad because of his love towards Ophelia. Anna Brownell Murphy Jameson states, “The love for Ophelia is deep, is real, and is precisely the kind of love which such a man like Hamlet will feel for such a women like Ophelia.” as well as she states, “But I weigh his actions against his words, and find them here of little worth.” ("Anna Brownell Murphy Jameson, Shakespeare's Heroines:Characteristics of Women (1889), AMS Press, New York, 1967. p. 161.) It is relevant to the first point because Anna Brownell Murphy Jameson explains her thoughts about Hamlet’s true love for Ophelia, but his actions towards Ophelia makes it seem as if he did not love her. So Polonius might be right, but at the same time, wrong about thinking that Hamlet’s madness is due to

He commands Ophelia to go see Hamlet, so that he and Claudius can spy on both of them to see his reaction. Ophelia obeys her father and goes to see Hamlet, he approaches her in a very courteous way, telling her how much he loves her but suddenly he attacks her with his words because he thinks that Ophelia and her father agreed to spy on him. In the play Hamlet denies this by saying, “But now the time gives it proof. I did love you once.”(Act 3. sc. 1 124-5). He is telling her that he loves her, but suddenly he implies, “Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where’s is your father?”(140-1) “Let the doors shut upon him that he may play the fool nowhere” (43-4) by implying this Hamlet assumes that Polonius is spying on their conversation and Ophelia knows, for that reason Hamlet verbally attacks her. For example, Professor Austin Flint said, “Hamlet believed that his meeting with Ophelia had been planned by Polonius, who overheard him/but the king does not really believe in Hamlet’s madness or that his peculiar actions are due to love for Ophelia.” (Carus, Paul, Dr. "The Open Court." May 1904. Web. 31 Mar. 2016.) Meaning that Hamlet realized that Polonius and her daughter planned the conversation, for that reason he reacted the way he did. Also, Claudius believed that Hamlet’s madness is not due to his love for Ophelia because his guilty conscience makes him think that Hamlet anger is due to