Explore the Ways Hamlet and Macbeth Both Shows Depression in Their Plays.

There are a variety of factors that can contribute to one’s demise. In the context of the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare many possibilities can be identified that pertain to Ophelia’s sudden death. Ophelia’s death was triggered by her mental breakdown due to the loss of her father. In the midst of her inner turmoil, her depression worsens as she learns that Hamlet, the man she loves departs to England. When she dies, Gertrude reports her death to Claudius and Laertes. Gertrude, The Queen of Denmark, is responsible for Ophelia’s death. By looking at Gertrude’s over protective relationship with Hamlet, her lack of initiative on the situations around her in a time of tragedy, as well as her vivid account of Ophelia’s death, evidence that

He therefore had to act mad even when talking to her because he realized his every move was being watched. This is evident when he told her he is not in love with her and that he never loved her. These statements by Hamlet caused him to inadvertently hurt Ophelia to such a great extent that she committed suicide. As a result, Hamlet was forced to permanently sacrifice his true love out of concern for his own safety and his goal.

Not only is Ophelia's death marked much less significant than the other male deaths noted in the previously mentioned articles, but Ophelia’s death is articulated as a passive accident, one that happened to occur, to no avail. Every other death in the play is met with vigorous analysis and criticism, unphased by the death of Ophelia, inadvertently caused by men. Ophelia is also described as “mermaid-like” adding to the previously set notion that women are sexual objects- even at death. At this point of the play, Hamlet proclaims in a bipolar and seemingly fraudulent manner that he has always loved Ophelia (although he ordered her to “get thee to a nunnery” and was the root of her abrupt madness and suicide), while Laertes threatens that he loved Ophelia more. The attention and passion are still not recognized and respected with Ophelia even after her death but is used as a game between two men to satisfy their guilt and build their ego, competing for the love of Ophelia that was only disrespected when she was

In Act 2 of Macbeth, the “dream” and “sleep” motifs are used to assist in setting an anxious mood in the text.

After the King’s murder, Macbeth tells his wife of how when one of the sleeping men in the room cried “God bless us!” he could not seem to let out an “Amen”. In Francesa Cauchi’s article "Compunctious visitings": conscience as unequivocal witness in Macbeth”, she further explains this experience, where Macbeth tells his wife of the interaction “and when his wife beseeches him to take it not so much to heart, he persists: "But wherefore could not I pronounce "Amen"? / I had most need of blessing and "Amen" / Stuck in my throat." (Shakespeare 2.2.34-36)...so childlike his distress and mounting fear, the tragic epicenter of the play might be said to reside in this one word emasculates the "brave" Macbeth. (14)”. Macbeth cannot help but feel as though he needs God’s blessing after committing such a crime, demonstrating how he is beginning to lose sanity and thinks God can help him maintain it. But, he knows he does not deserve his blessing with this sin on his hands, so the “Amen” is stuck in his throat as he could not let it out. He has a “mounting fear” of the consequences that await him, making him lose sleep and peace of mind. Macbeth’s fear has “emasculated” or deprived him of his identity as “brave” and honorable. Additionally, in I-Chun Wang’s article “Intermedial representations in Asian Macbeth-s”, Wang explains that “After the

Sleep is a recurring theme in the play Macbeth, and as the play progresses, it takes on different meanings. At the beginning of the play, it represents the peace that his stress and guilt have taken from him, but as the play progresses, it becomes a goal that Macbeth is striving to reach by fixing his past mistakes, eventually turning into a way for Lady Macbeth to reveal her true feelings about who Macbeth has become. Throughout Macbeth, sleep represents a typical state of existence and living, and as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth stray further and further away from this typical life, they also stray from sleep.

In Williams Shakespeare's Hamlet, there were many deaths. Everyone died from poisoning except Polonius and Ophelia. What drove Ophelia into madness was the death of her father who was killed by Hamlet.Losing her father and the thought of losing her brother and lover drove Ophelia to be suicidal. Therefore, Ophelia's death was a suicide.

Depression in Mental Illnesses The majority of people in this world seem to understand and get the basic feel of how things work. This meaning most people learn to eventually accept things how they are at a certain stage in their life and work with what they can work with. However, some individuals in this world tend to dwell on the past, overthink things, or have a fanatical desire for something or someone.

Macbeth realizes there is no way to escape his sins when they are literally haunting him, whether by real magic in the world of the play or his own hallucinations. Macbeth says he “dare look on that which might appall the devil.” (52) He is clearly appalled by the sight, brought closer to the devil he mentions by being forced to stare his deeds in the face. On page 55, the rift between Macbeth and his religion widens, as he goes to speak to the weird sisters. Once, he might have asked consultation from a god, or tried to stutter out an amen.

Ophelia had many things that triggered her to the thought of suicide. “Even in his tirade against Ophelia, she is scarcely more than a prop...”(Intentional meaning in Hamlet: an evolutionary perspective). She was used as a toy by most of the characters in the play even her father. Ophelia was always seen as a throwaway object instead of a person who mattered to people. When Ophelia was having bad days like when she lost her father or when Hamlet rejected her, no one cared enough to check on her and see if she was okay. Ophelia started to go crazy after she had lost her father but Hamlet and her brother did not care enough, like everyone else, to find out if she was truly okay. Ophelia had been treated very poorly by many people throughout the play including her brother, father, and lover.

In William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, Ophelia, Polonius’s innocent child, overwhelmed with grief drowns herself in a brook. Many instances led to her unfortunate death. The first situation was Polonius’s ploy to see if Hamlet was mad because he loved Ophelia or from other causes. Hamlet, continuing to portray himself as a madman, ruthlessly scolds Ophelia. She is confused as to why he’s fanatically yelling at her since they loved each other. As the story nears its conclusion, Hamlet is bitterly criticizing Gertrude, his mother. In the heat of their discussion, Hamlet unsheathes his rapier and fatally wounds Polonius mistaking him as King Claudius. When Ophelia discovers the fate of her father, she is depressed. In conjunction, with Hamlet’s

Sleep provides a sanctuary [BS]. Sleep provides peace of mind. Sleep provides sanity [Parallel]. Sleeping allows the mind a chance to rest and creates a bliss that one can only experience while he rests. Although important, sleep negatively provides the chance for nightmares to creep into the resting mind [Periodic]. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the murderers Macbeth and Lady Macbeth begin to lose sleep. Unable to bear the pain of both conscious fear and terror of the night, the couple slowly edges towards insanity [Periodic]. Shakespeare uses his play Macbeth to show that sleep for the guilty minded and fearful is torture.

` How do Shakespeare and Duffy present disturbed women in Macbeth and the World’s Wife The notion and presence of disturbed women is recurrent throughout literature and the modern world. Within the drama Macbeth Shakespeare presents an instable character, who is extremely antithetical to how 17th century women were perceived within their patriarchal society. Similarly Duffy also presents instable and disturbed women but instead through the form of a collection of poem labeled the World’s Wife. The constructs from both texts communicate women’s timeless crusade for liberation and suggest that as women strive to regain power, within society their minds must sometimes be sacrificed in the process.

In Shakespeare’s Hamlet the family members of Hamlet and Ophelia induce madness through controlling and somewhat incestuous relationships, ultimately leading them to their demise. The madness that their family members bring upon them shows that, both Ophelia and Hamlet become fascinated with death/suicide, an escape from the madness. Ophelia lives a life controlled by her father and brother, she is given virtually no dominance in the play. She is assertive, always being controlled and having her feelings controlled by her brother or father. This over controlling relationship with her father and brother leads to her madness and ultimately death/suicide.

One author, Alison Chapman, compares Ophelia’s death to a more blatant suicide and says, “although her abbreviated funeral rites strongly suggest suicide, her drowning is admittedly more ambiguous than Hales's clear and deliberate act of self-slaughter” (Chapman 129). The defining moment that shows that Ophelia commits suicide is in Act 4 Scene 5, where she displays her madness. Laertes says that her wits are “as mortal as an old man’s life” (Shakespeare 4.5.184). Ophelia has entered a depressive and distracted state at this point, which is a clear indicator that suicide is possible. She is pained by the death of her father and Hamlet’s rejection of her.