Most literary characters have flaws of some kind as this gives them a three dimensional quality. However, in the case of fatally flawed characters, these flaws are so deeply formed that they are doomed to failure and demise. In William Shakespeare 's Hamlet, a tragedy, the majority of the characters are doomed or flawed in some way that ultimately results in their failure. Through his portrayal of several secondary characters, Shakespeare proves that all humans possess a tragic flaw in their nature which will ultimately lead to their demise. Despite each of these tragic characters having a unique fatal flaw, this aspect in their characters is what eventually leads Claudius, Ophelia and Polonius to their untimely deaths.
Despite being the
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As a result of spending her life under the protection of her father and his orders, due to her submissive nature, Ophelia remains naive and unaware of the deceit and bitterness surrounding her which renders her incapable of facing the harsh realities of life once her father dies and Hamlet leaves her. After the death of her father and with the absence of both Laertes and Hamlet from her life at the time, Ophelia is driven to madness and Gertrude explains it the King: “She speaks much of her father, says she hears there’s tricks i ' the ' world, and hems, and beats her heart, spurns enviously at straws, speaks things in doubt that carry but half sense.” Finally seeing the grim reality of her surroundings without her father to hide behind, Ophelia loses her sanity and eventually end her own life as she no longer knows how to lead an independent life. In conclusion, Ophelia is portrayed as a puppet on strings being pulled around by the males in her life, making all her decisions and controlling what she can and can’t do, and once all the men are gone, she no longer able to function on her own and she ends her life as a result.
Unlike Ophelia, who was driven to madness and death due to a combination of her submissive nature and forces out of her control, Polonius orchestrates deceitful schemes to obtain what he wants due to his nosy, intrusive nature and utter disregard for the privacy and well
In the life of Ophelia, it can be seen that she is very dependant on Polonius. She obeys him, even if she doesn’t want to. When she is told by Polonius, “I would not, in plain terms, from
Polonius’s manipulative ways are irreplaceable to Ophelia. “I would give you some violets/ but they withered all when my father died…” (Act IV, Scene V, lines 177-178) Violets are a known symbol of faithfulness; Ophelia feels betrayed that her father has died and left her, and
Polonius’ image and plans take precedence over his daughter’s physical and mental wellbeing. This leaves her vulnerable and in danger in regards to Hamlet. When Ophelia describes Hamlet accosting her, Polonius’ reacts by saying:
Even in death, she displays yielding and passive behavior: Ophelia does not have the intention of committing suicide, though she fails to save herself from sinking. She is essentially a casualty of a society that enforces unreasonable expectations for its women and is never afforded the liberty of thinking for herself and making her own judgments and decisions. Her passive death represents the lack of control she has over her own person and the dependence she has developed on other people. Therefore, Ophelia is mentally unstable and not capable of realizing that her life is on the line. Ophelia is trained by the men in her life to be compliant with their demands, preventing her from practicing her autonomy and enabling her to be easily manipulated by Hamlet.
Ophelia is Hamlet’s love interest throughout the entire play. However, in an attempt to be strategic, Hamlet feigns insanity in order to be deceiving and in turn breaks Ophelia's heart. His sudden disinterest towards her coupled with her father Polonius and brother Laertes’ commands to stay away from Hamlet composes a dire internal conflict within Ophelia's mind. She is torn between her undying love for Hamlet versus her desire to be an obedient daughter and sister. In addition, Hamlet unintentionally murders Polonius rather than Claudius, which also adds to Ophelia's insanity. To make matter worse, Ophelia has no mother figure within her life. So taken all together, she is stuck in a constant battle within herself with nobody who is there for her. “I hope all will be well. We must be patient/ but I cannot choose but weep/ to think they would lay him/ i' th' cold ground” (Hamlet v, iv). This quote from Ophelia demonstrates her deep sorrow towards her father's death, as well as the start of her path to insanity. Her lack of a maternal figure leaves her with nobody to discuss her feelings and troubles with. Because of this constant battle within her life, Ophelia finds herself in a confrontation with her emotions, which ends in her official decision of suicide. Which one could argue makes her decisive in the end which may be true, but her internal struggle leading to her choice of suicide is what makes her a great example of a character struggling with uncertainty during times of
The entire play of Hamlet by William Shakespeare, is based around the young prince Hamlet who has lost his father and is trying to avenge his death in any means possible. With this duty over his shoulders, it causes him to overthink every decision that he is trying to make and ultimately leads to his demise. Although everyone overthinks some situations, Hamlet would be known to have Generalized Anxiety Disorder in common time because whenever he starts to come up with a plan he starts to think and gets anxious. Hamlet is seen to overthink when his father’s ghosts comes back to guide him, trying to come up with a way to kill Claudius, and while he contemplates suicide. In everyone of Shakespeare 's tragedies the tragic hero always has a flaw, in this case it was Hamlet’s inability to act on his actions in a timely manner.
Ophelia, ever since her introduction, has been introduced to be a sweet and sympathetic person, providing the play with emotional moments, but her death was used as a bait and switch by Shakespeare towards audience members who had expected her to change the play’s somber mood to more hopeful one, which in turn makes the play even more tragic. After she had been visited by an apparently crazed Hamlet, she tells Polonius about the visit, prompting him to believe that the young prince is crazy in love, and goes out to tell the king. After it was explained to Claudius, and Hamlet’s former friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern failed to find the underlying cause of his madness, Polonius makes Ophelia approach Hamlet while he and the king hide and monitor his behavior.
him as much. Then she would not have been with Claudius and drank the poisoned
“Procrastination is opportunity’s natural assassin” –Victor Kiam. Shakespeare’s play, The Tragedy of Hamlet, illustrates this idea through the character of Hamlet. Hamlet is given multiple chances to avenge his father’s death, however, fails to do so due to internal struggles, lack of proper planning and timing skills, and his indecisive nature. These flaws ultimately lead to Hamlet’s demise and the death of several other characters.
However, Ophelia truly goes mad when Hamlet accidentally murdered Polonius in mistake for King Claudius. Thus, convincing Ophelia that she is truly naive and how Hamlet never loved her because of his murder upon her father. This all leads to Ophelia not finding the purpose to live on anymore because she has gone mad with schizophrenia of her father’s and beloved’s voices that continuously repeat how degrading and unworthy she is as a human being. She was emotionally falling apart by the isolation of those voices that filled her mind of being a lower class citizen to Hamlet and ruining the royalty's reputation. Essentially throughout the tragedy, Ophelia was being profoundly mistreated by the people who mean the world to her, which caused her to be deeply affected by their words and viewed herself to be inferior and undeserving of love.
With Hamlet being generally labeled as the best tragic hero ever created, it is ironic that his tragic flaw has never been as solidly confirmed as those of most of his fellow protagonists. There is Macbeth with his ambition, Oedipus with his pride, Othello with his jealousy, and all the others with their particular odd spots. Then there is Hamlet. He has been accused of everything and of nothing, and neither seems to stick. Flaws are carved out of obscure conversations when he may or may not be speaking truthfully and alleged from instances of his own self-discipline. They are bored into him with the bits of psychological drills invented long after Shakespeare's hand crafted
Ophelia experiences alienation throughout Hamlet, although she ends her life with suicide, unlike Hamlet. The queen places blame on Ophelia for Hamlet's madness and states: "...for your part, Ophelia, I do wish that your good beauties be the happy cause for Hamlet's madness..." (Shakespeare 140). The queen lightens her feelings of guilt for the murder and places the guilt upon Ophelia. Gertrude, the queen, knows that she has committed something wrong with the plot of killing Old Hamlet and therefore finds an outlet through Ophelia. Also, to try to discover Hamlet's cause of insanity, Claudius and Polonius use Ophelia to get closer to him and find out that perhaps they could conclude that his
Hamlet’s greatest flaw is his hesitation. He is unable to act. He remains philosophical to his detriment. When he should seek vengeance over his father’s murder he chooses to contemplate whether retribution is right or wrong. His inability to act and punish those who have sin against him is his tragic flaw. Even when his father appears as a ghost and demands Hamlet to avenge him, he chooses to think it over instead of acting on his father’s behalf. When he says "O wicked spite that ever I was born to set it right, (Shakespeare 1.5.190-191) " he acknowledges it is his job to set things right not only for his family, but also for his country. He procrastinates to much in his own thoughts and everything starts to slip away.
Shakespeare’s Hamlet is an interesting play in many ways. The character Hamlet is particularly intriguing in regards to his fatal flaw. Hamlet’s fatal flaw is a specific trait that forces him to postpone killing the king and it is this trait that drives Hamlet mad (Shakespeare 1.4.23-38). This Shakespearean tragedy is open to many interpretations of Hamlet’s fatal flaw. Two recent film productions of the play, Kenneth Branaugh’s Hamlet and the Zeffirelli’s Hamlet, each show a different fatal flaw in Hamlet. Branaugh shows his fatal flaw to be that Hamlet over thinks everything. Zeffirelli accentuates the Oepipus Complex in Hamlet meaning that Hamlet is jealous over his mother. Branaugh and Zeffirelli both use different methods to
Hamlet's fatal flaw is his inability to act. Unlike his father, Hamlet lets his intelligence rather than his heroism govern him. When he has a chance to kill Claudius, and take vengeance for his father's murder, he hesitates, reckoning that if he kills the man while he is at prayer, Claudius would have asked for pardon from the Lord and been forgiven of his sins, therefore allowing him to enter Heaven. Hamlet decides to wait for a better opening. His flaw of being hesitant in the end leads to his own death, and also the deaths of Gertrude, Ophelia, Laertes, and Claudius.