Monday, February 2, 2009
Hamlet and Ophelia
I read both "Hamlet and Ophelia" by Rebecca West and "Producing Hamlet" by Jan Kott, both articles present a different opinion on the relationship of Ophelia and Hamlet. West holds the opinion that Ophelia is "not a chaste young woman ... shown by her tolerance of Hamlet's obscene conversations." West says that Ophelia is "foredoomed" by her father to be a mere pawn in the court. The affection between Hamlet and Ophelia is spurred on by Polonius's desire to gain favor with the prince; Ophelia is one of the "poor little girls who were sacrificed to family ambition in the days when the court was a cat's cradle of conspiracies." There is no true affection between Ophelia and Hamlet, Ophelia is only following her father's orders to either become Hamlet's mistress or when/if Hamlet falls out of favor then act as a spy for the King. On the other hand, Kott maintains that Hamlet truly loves Ophelia but "he has more important matters to attend to." Their love is fated to end because "in a world where murder holds sway, there is no room for love." Hamlet also knows he is perpetually being watched, when he dramatically cries "Get thee to a nunnery!" it is addressed to everyone listening not just to Ophelia. For the rest of the world, that cry confirms Hamlet's madness caused by his obsession with Ophelia and for Ophelia it proves that their love does not hold sway in such corrupt world.
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7 comments:
Anne,
I commend you for doing extra reading and I thought that the points you brought up were interesting! I too pondered the idea if Ophelia and Hamlet are actually even in love because in my opinion they show absolutely no affection for each other. Your use of quotes from the readings helped support the different viewpoints and overall I enjoyed your blog. Good Job!
Alex
Anne! great job! it was cool to read viewpoints of other authors as well as the points you made about the story. I think the part about Hamlet addressing everyone, not only Ophelia when he says "Get thee to a nunnery" is really interesting and a good observation. nicely done!
This is a great summary of two contrasting viewpoints about a very complex topic. Hamlet and Ophelia's relationship is an incredibly complicated matter in the text; thanks to the subjectivity of literature, we can all develop our own interpretations.
Great Job! I think the two articles you read seem interesting. I have also wondered if Ophelia actually does care for Hamlet, but it seems to me that she is just following her father's orders. I think that Hamlet at one time did care for her and may still, but at the moment is too concerned with the murder of his uncle to get involved. Great Job!!
Anne, I thought you did a very nice job on this blog. You made some very nice points about the story and about the important relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia. I liked how you effectively drew ideas from the articles and also provided some of your own insights. Great job!
Anne! I love the different perspectives you examine on this subject! Both sides of the argument are totally worth considering! Great job!
Inky cloak (see 1.2, "tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother . . ")--a good summary of two very different points of view on the relationship between H & O. Were you convinced more by one than the other?
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