Parenting in Hamlet by William Shakespeare Essays

The story of Hamlet is a morbid tale of tragedy, commitment, and manipulation; this is especially evident within the character of Ophelia. Throughout the play, Ophelia is torn between obeying and following the different commitments that she has to men in her life. She is constantly torn between the choice of obeying the decisions and wishes of her family or that of Hamlet. She is a constant subject of manipulation and brain washing from both her father and brother. Ophelia is not only subject to the torture of others using her for their intentions but she is also susceptible to abuse from Hamlet. Both her father and her brother believe that Hamlet is using her to achieve his own personal goals.

In another scene, Polonius orders Ophelia to return the gifts that Hamlet gave her, and to make her rejection of him unmistakable and absolute. Polonius believes that if she is the cause of Hamlet’s madness, this would be the proof. “That Hamlet loses his mental stability is arguable from his behavior toward Ophelia…” (Foster, par.16) In Branagh’s version, we see how terribly this tears Ophelia’s heart. When Hamlet sees her, he walks up to her, telling her how much he loves her. After Hamlet kisses her, she returns the love letters that he wrote back to him. She sees how crushed he is, which makes her feel even worse; but she also believes she has to do this because her father ordered her to. Hamlet tells her “Get thee to a nunnery” (William

However, I wonder if Ophelia’s drastic actions stem from something other than obedience-- such as her character. Her compliance seems to go deeper than her trying to please her father, and her thoughts and actions show what a weak character she really is. For instance, when Hamlet bullies her and tells her to retreat to a nunnery where she could no longer harm anyone, she does not defend herself. Instead, after he stalks away from her, she is filled with self-pity. “O woe is me t’have seen what I have seen/ see what I see…” (Act III, Scene I, lines 154-155) Ophelia does not appear to be a strong enough person to come to her own defense, even when Hamlet is mocking everything that she is. Her “woe is me” shame comes from the fact that she is rarely reprimanded since she always strives to please. Furthermore, when Polonius dies, Ophelia loses her primary guidance and, instead of trying her hand at thinking for herself, she appeals to her brother for help in solving her problems. “My brother shall know of it/ and so I thank you for your good counsel…” (Act IV, Scene V, line 69) She recognizes that she is not strong enough to survive by herself without constant leadership and direction.

Midway through Hamlet, Ophelia is well under the control of Polonius and Hamlet. They are both manipulating and using her as a pawn as to get what they want and she has little to no say about it. Act 2, scene 1 serves as a turning point, as it is when Ophelia begins to realize the manipulation she faces at the hands of both her father and Hamlet, and that she can only truly gain her freedom when she herself descends into madness. Polonius’ manipulation, Hamlet’s control and Ophelia’s own thoughts and actions demonstrate her descent, and the aftermath.

Polonius teams up with King Claudius and once again places demands on Ophelia which require her to disregard her own self to fulfill their wishes of deceiving Hamlet into revealing the cause of his erratic behavior. And once again, it is Ophelia’s duty to her father and this time to the king to be obedient. Disobedience to the king and his advisor are not an option. Polonius wants the king to look on him in good favor and he is willing to step on his daughter to get this admiration. He neglects Ophelia’s feelings by not even thinking of how his requests will affect her. He feels at liberty to request whatever he would like. He is purely worried about himself. Polonius holds a position of unquestioning authority over his daughter. He treats her as though she is not intelligent enough to make her own decisions and he knows that she will inherently obey him. To him her feelings are irrelevant and immature which he states when saying “Affection, puh, you speak like a green girl.”(1.3.101) Following her fathers instructions, she loses her lover and a piece of her happiness.

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.

In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Ophelia is the most static character in the play. Instead of changing through the course of the play, she remains suffering in the misfortunes perpetrated upon her. She falls into insanity and dies a tragic death. Ophelia has issues surviving without a male influence, and her downfall is when all the men in her life abandon her. Hamlet’s Ophelia, is a tragic, insane character that cannot exist on her own.

When a parent dies, you need someone to fall back on. This person helps you get through it and make you feel loved. If you do not have someone there to help you through this time, you often turn to other things like acting crazy and wanting to take your own life because you feel as if you are not loved and you want to get rid of the pain. Hamlet loved his father and his death took a big part of his life away from him. His mother, Gertrude, needed to spend time with him, to show him he was loved and someone cared about him. Gertrude was not there for Hamlet the way she should have been, and because of this he began to act like he was crazy. Instead of spending time with her son, Gertrude was busy getting married to the late Kings

In the wake of Polonius’s death, her behavior meets criteria for detecting PTSD. Because of this conditions unique origin outside the mind, she’s wildly crazy but within the reach of others’ help. Instead of being an irrational madwoman, Ophelia becomes fully human, a teenager of conflicting emotions who cracks under stress and trauma. She talks back to her brother, exchanges love letters with a boy, and argues with her father. However, details of her life and background exhibit factors associated with a high possibility for developing PTSD. Her mother is notably missing from the play and has likely passed away. Not one character mentions a maternal figure, giving the audience the impression that the family avoids speaking about her as one might do after losing a loved one. Since Ophelia is only a teenager, her mother’s death could only have happened recently or in her childhood. As research reveals, such an early experience “of separation and loss [seems] to push the subject toward

There is no one correct way to raise children. Many different methods have been experimented with, producing varying results. In fiction, these ideas of parenthood can be further explored due to no real children being involved in the process, allowing for more questionable practices to be utilized. Shakespeare enjoys writing about various parent-child relationship in his play, with Hamlet being no different. One of the major parent figures in Hamlet is Polonius, the chief advisor to the king, Claudius. Polonius is a father that is paranoid and overprotective of his children, Laertes and Ophelia, not allowing them to have many liberties. He asserts his authority over his children’s every action, making him a good father in regards to ensuring his children’s safety but a bad father in terms of being too controlling and stripping them of any independence.

This is the woman she might have become – warm, tolerant and imaginative. Instead she becomes jagged, benighted and imaginative. . . .Ophelia is made mad not only by circumstance but by something in herself. A personality forced into such deep hiding that it has seemed almost vacant, has all the time been so painfully open to impressions that they now usurp her reflexes and take possession of her. She has loved, or been prepared to love, the wrong man; her father has brought disaster on himself, and she has no mother: she is terribly lonely. (73-74)

of a terrible waste of young life. As a result of the way in which

Hardships and sufferings are common in an average person’s life, but enduring a certain amount can push a person past their limits. At times, one's actions can lead to other people's limits being broken resulting in unexpected consequences. Hamlet by William Shakespeare involves two characters named Ophelia and Gertrude who both suffer from Hamlet's verbal and physical abuse; of the two, Ophelia suffers to a greater extent because of her decision to commit suicide. The cruel insults Hamlet addresses Ophelia with hurts her deeply due to them being false, whereas the harsh words Hamlet uses to describe Gertrude with are mostly true. Ophelia gets traumatized from both Hamlet’s sayings and actions, causing her to suffer an incredible amount. Queen Gertrude, who is the mother of Hamlet, is humiliated with abusive language by her son, which causes a particularly large amount of emotional distress on her since these words are coming from her very own child. First, the two suffer major harm from Hamlet due to his insults that cause them to feel worthless and violated. Gertrude becomes extremely offended by everything Hamlet says to her. Ophelia is greatly saddened, but at the same time she is worried about Hamlet. The death of Ophelia’s father causes the devastated daughter to fall into a state of depression, ultimately ending with the young woman taking her own life. On the other hand, the mother of Hamlet does not suffer from her son's torment as much as Ophelia because her death is the result of an accident, not the outcome of tremendous emotional suffering which Ophelia’s death resulted from. Additionally, Ophelia and Gertrude go through emotional suffering due to Hamlet’s verbal insult.

character. Ophelia’s dependence on others is, sadly, what lead to her death. She could not

Response to Shakespeare's Presentation of the Responsibilities and Obligations Placed on Sons by Fathers in Hamlet