Saturday, February 15, 2014
Hamlet Act III
I think there are several very interesting parts to the exchange between Hamlet and Ophelia during Act 3. For starters, I thought it was weird how Ophelia said, “My lord, I have remembrances of yours/ That I have longed long to redeliver.” This is due to the fact that soon after Hamlet tells her that he never gave Ophelia anything, yet she insists that he did in rich detail—“words of so sweet breath/ composed/ As made the things more rich. Their perfume/ lost.” In these few lines alone, Ophelia is expressing how she believes that Hamlet indeed is the writer of those letters. Moreover, Shakespeare even shares a monetary thematic message when he uses words like “rich” and “lost” again tying back to the significant message of financial burden in order to illustrate relationships and social components throughout Hamlet. Additionally Shakespeare also reintroduces the “whore” motif and “perception” versus “reality” or “seeming” versus “is-ing” when Hamlet retorts to Ophelia “That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty.” In essence, Hamlet is accusing Ophelia quite cleverly remarking how her beauty has nothing to do with the level of her moral justice and quite frankly, (for Hamlet), he states it as if Ophelia’s beauty and her morals are inversely related. Hamlet then elaborates further by saying “the power of beauty will sooner transform honestly from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness,” therefore basically calling Ophelia out that it’s easier for her to become a whore than to change her roots and become a pious woman, thus resulting in him suggesting that Ophelia later take herself to a nunnery and shun herself from society. Hamlet therefore is proposing that surface beauty, aka “seeming” on the exterior for a human being is very influential, but wrongly, since inner beauty through the worth of morality should be more impactful. Yet Hamlet seems very harsh in his words as he rebukes Ophelia, “If thou dost marry, I’ll give thee this plague for thy dowry. Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery, go. Farewell. Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool, for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go, and quickly too. Farewell.” This statement, however, seems quite contradictory to me due to the reason that Hamlet is giving Ophelia the opposite advice that her father has given Ophelia. Hence, if I were in Ophelia’s position I would be very confused on two conditions: first, my father has told me that I shouldn’t give my love to Hamlet or else I would give birth to a fool and second, Hamlet, however, has just told me that I should marry a fool. Likewise, I would also be quite annoyed by what I would have done to deserve all this verbal abuse from both my boyfriend and father.
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Diana, I really like your modern approach to this scene between Ophelia and Hamlet. After reading you blog, I have a few questions for you:
ReplyDelete1.) You have expressed that you feel sympathy toward Ophelia, but did she not lie about her father's location? And, isn't she a weak lover, giving up all her feelings for the man she loved in the instant her father told her to? Granted, she was being a good daughter there, bu t wouldn't you expect her, especially in a play plagued by disguises and deception, to try and keep the fire of her love aflame in a secretive manner with Hamlet? Even now, It would have been incredibly easy for Shakespeare to have played Ophelia as saying to Shakespeare what her father instructed her to say, "My lord, I have remembrances of yours that I have longèd long to redeliver. I pray you now receive them,” etc, etc, but making it clear to Hamlet, through facial and bodily expressions, that she is being forced to do this. She could have slipped Hamlet a note in the “remembrances” she gave back to him that explained how she had no choice, and that she had to obey her father. But Shakespeare didn’t. Why? In my opinion, it emphasizes Ophelia’s innocence and stupidity.
2.) Do you think this was a break-up? Who dumped whom? When Ophelia says, “Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind,” does she truly mean what she is uttering? Is she only saying it because else knows her father and the king are listening? And, something I never really understood was how exactly Hamlet had ever been “unkind” to her. During their last encounter, as described by Ophelia, Hamlet certainly displayed a keen level of madness, but I never considered it to be unkind. If anything, Ophelia’s insincere and unemotional separation from hamlet is the one that’s unkind. Likewise, when Hamlet says, “I did love you once,” is he implying that he no longer does? Why does he say that? To preserve his ego? To, if subtly, admit to his madness? To make her feel guilty? If Hamlet is suggesting that he has ceased to feel for her anymore, it is highly ironic that he is showering her with advice like “get thee to a nunnery.” Of course, in suggesting that Ophelia abstain from giving birth to children, Hamlet is insinuating that she will save the earth from another human being with the same deceiving and promiscuous genes as her, but there is an unmistakable concern in that line. Hamlet is revealing a small amount of jealousy that, to me, sounds like – if I can’t have her, no-one can, and I can’t help but read the text also to mean, protect yourself from other men like your father, and even myself, for I am “proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in.” Now that we have read the end of the play as well, Hamlet’s powerful reaction to Ophelia death further supports these hypotheses.
3.) Is Ophelia really a whore? If we’re talking in facts, we haven’t read of her having sexual relations with any men in the play. Even if we do accept the nuances in certain areas of the text, like the numerous references to being pregnant and Ophelia’s later prominent garlands, the only man that she may have had an intimate relationship with would be Hamlet – and that’s the man she loved. So, how exactly is she a whore?
I don’t know if anyone can answer the question I’ve posed, but it’s always interesting to think about!