The Nunnery Scene One moment he says 'I did love you once', the next 'I loved you not'. He goes on to insult Ophelia and tells her to go to a nunnery. He tells her that this will be the best place for her and, by being a nun, Ophelia won't have children and produce wicked men like his uncle.
Hamlet is cruel to Ophelia because he has transferred his anger at Gertrude's marriage to Claudius onto Ophelia. In fact, Hamlet's words suggest that he transfers his rage and disgust for his mother onto all women. He says to Ophelia, “God has given you one face and you make yourselves another.
Hamlet's rejection allowed him to reject Ophelia and his love for her. Although he does love her, he couldn't let Ophelia distract him from getting his revenge. Hamlet separates himself away from his family and friends and harrasses Ophelia by naming her vulgar comments.
During an angry tirade against Ophelia, Hamlet blames his madness on women, particularly on what he sees as women's habit of disguising themselves with make-up and feminine behavior. Hamlet often struggles with the difficulty of separating disguises from reality, but he also seems obsessed with female sexuality.
Hamlet seems to know that Ophelia is helping her dad spy on him, and he accuses her (and all women) of being a "breeder of sinners" and orders Ophelia to a "nunnery" (3.1.
The Nunnery Scene
One moment he says 'I did love you once', the next 'I loved you not'. He goes on to insult Ophelia and tells her to go to a nunnery. He tells her that this will be the best place for her and, by being a nun, Ophelia won't have children and produce wicked men like his uncle.
Bidding his sister, Ophelia, farewell, he cautions her against falling in love with Hamlet, who is, according to Laertes, too far above her by birth to be able to love her honorably. Since Hamlet is responsible not only for his own feelings but for his position in the state, it may be impossible for him to marry her.
Hamlet fears that his sexual indifference makes him worthless, so he cruelly punishes Gertrude and Ophelia for their lack of indifference. After Hamlet mocks Ophelia's makeup, her flirtations, and other indicators of her sexuality, he says once again that she should go to a nunnery and leaves.
Summary and Analysis Act IV: Scene 5. A court gentleman reports that Ophelia has become pitiably insane. Gertrude refuses to see the girl, but Horatio points out that Ophelia's mental state may attract undue attention to herself and the crown. Gertrude then agrees to speak with Ophelia.
Hamlet acts mad in order to manipulate Ophelia into believing he is gone crazy. Hamlet planned to create a dominos effect that would start with Ophelia thinking he has gone mad which would lead her to pass this information onto Polonius further passing it onto Claudius.
First, her boyfriend dumps her, then he calls her vulgar names, and lastly, he kills her father. Just one of these traumatic events could make a character go mad, but the combination of the three justifies Ophelia's madness. The use of these three tragic events in Ophelia's life makes her madness reasonable.
Grief-stricken and outraged, Hamlet bursts upon the company, declaring in agonized fury his own love for Ophelia. He leaps into the grave and fights with Laertes, saying that “forty thousand brothers / Could not, with all their quantity of love, / make up my sum” (V.i.254–256).
While she lives in the same patriarchal society that demands that she subjugate herself to her father and her brother until she is married, Ophelia has fallen in love with Prince Hamlet. There is strong evidence that she has even had sexual relations with him.
Hamlet betrays Ophelia by refusing his love for her and being the cause of her madness with words such as “I loved you not” (III. I. 119) and “get thee to a nunnery” (III.
Background: Ophelia's syndrome is the association of Hodgkin's Lymphoma and memory loss, coined by Dr. Carr in 1982, while it's most remembered for the eponym in reminiscence of Shakespeare's character, Dr.
Their particular form of madness was more related to hysteria -- an affliction which was considered to be particularly feminine. Clinically speaking, Ophelia's behavior and appearance are characteristic of the malady the Elizabethans would have diagnosed as female love-melancholy, or erotomania.
Hamlet's sexually objectifies Ophelia when he asks her if he can lie on her lap (Act 3, scene 2, 105). This behavior is Hamlet's attempt to transfer his frustrations about his mother. Hamlet reconfirms his sincere love for Ophelia at her death bed.
Hamlet shows throughout the play that he is really in love with Ophelia. One piece of evidence showing that Hamlet really did love Ophelia is when he tells her, “I did love you” (Act 3 scene 1 line 126). Hamlet confesses that he truly loved her, but then goes back on his word and says he never loved.
Tragic flaw: Ophelia has no control over her mind, body, and relationships, she doesn't think for herself.
To her father and brother, Ophelia is the eternal virgin, the vessel of morality whose purpose is to be a dutiful wife and steadfast mother. To Hamlet, she is a sexual object, a corrupt and deceitful lover.
He tells her that the only way she will be able to protect herself from her female nature – the fickleness and betrayal that he attributes to women – would be to lock herself away in a nunnery where she will not have any contact with men and therefore be unable to betray them.
'To be, or not to be: that is the question'.
Arguably the most famous quotation in the whole of Hamlet, this line begins one of Hamlet's darkest and most philosophical soliloquies.
At the top of Act Three Polonius forces Ophelia to return Hamlet's letters and renounce his affections.
Who Is Ophelia? Ophelia is the daughter of Polonius, one of King Claudius' closest friends. She is described as a beautiful young woman, and she is also the love interest of the main character in the story Hamlet. Her love for Hamlet and her loyalty to her father creates friction and leads to tragedy in Ophelia's life.
Ophelia's drowning is the consummate representation of an eternal retreat into the feminine, trading an individual voice for eternal silence in union with feminine essence. In turn, her death expresses the danger of reducing an individual to his or her gender and disregarding the voice of the marginalized.