Reality and Illusion in Shakespeare's Hamlet - Appearance and Reality

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

In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Prince Hamlet serves as one of the most multi-faceted characters in the entire play with critics often deeming his personality “paradoxical”. Ultimately, Hamlet provides the audience with the epitomy of internal contrast and instability by rapidly transitioning through periods of caution and rash action, introversion and extroversion and calculation and spontaneity.

It is widely believed that “Living life without honor is a tragedy bigger than death itself” and this holds true for Hamlet’s Ophelia. Ophelia’s death symbolizes a life spent passively tolerating Hamlet’s manipulations and the restrictions imposed by those around her, while struggling to maintain the last shred of her dignity. Ophelia’s apathetic reaction to her drowning suggests that she never had control of her own life, as she was expected to comply with the expectations of others. Allowing the water to consume her without a fight alludes to Hamlet’s treatment of Ophelia as merely a device in his personal agenda. Her apparent suicide denotes a desire to take control of her life for once. Ophelia’s death is, arguably, an honorable one,

One must always be weary of the truth because it is quite often manipulated to serve the needs of any person who requires that the truth be on their side. Quite often, the only way to discern the truth from the fiction is by way of a deceptive act, because an act of deception always exposes both its self and the truth to be two quite different things. Nowhere is this more true than in William Shakespeare's, Hamlet. One of the major themes in the play is in fact, deception. This central theme is expressed throughout the play in three major forms: the fear of being deceived, the act of deception, and the ultimate result of the deceptive act. The first facet of the deceptive

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 the play Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, there are two characters that foil each other. Hamlet and Laertes go through many similar events throughout the story. Firstly, both of their fathers are murdered during the play. This makes both characters want to seek revenge at all costs. Secondly, Hamlet and Laertes are both spied on during the play. Finally, Ophelia's death affects Hamlet because she was his lover and it affects Laertes because she was his sister. For the following reasons one can see that Hamlet and Laertes go through similar problems throughout the play which make them foil characters.

Throughout history there has been a general understanding that appearances can be deceiving. A person may go through life without anyone understanding the true reality of their character. William Shakespeare, one of the greatest writers of all time, understood the relationship between appearance and reality and often gave characters two sides to their personality.

Claudius has experienced failed and successful perception that has left massive impacts in his life. An example of how failed perception caused suffering happens when Claudius attends the play, “The Murder of Gonzago”, where Hamlet jokingly calls “The Mouse-Trap” and fails to see it as a trap Hamlet has staged for him. Hamlet has set up the play to receive a reaction from Claudius therefore confirming he was the one who murdered Old King Hamlet, his own brother. Due to this failed perception of the play’s true intentions, Claudius seems to be quite upset about the play

In Hamlet, William Shakespeare leaves many mysteries for the audience to decipher on their own. One such, is the mystery surrounding Ophelia’s death. Harmonie Loberg, in the article, “Queen Gertrude: Monarch, Mother, Murderer,” argues that, “Queen Gertrude is responsible for Ophelia’s death” (60). The Queen’s description of Ophelia’s death is controversial because it is so full of detail, that many believe it must be an eye witness account. Did the Queen kill Ophelia to try and protect Hamlet? The last scene seems to answer this question, as the Queen shares in the same fate that befalls all of the other murderers in the play. Ophelia’s death is suspicious and should not be thought of as a suicide, but instead a calculated murder by an overly

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.

Hamlet mistakes that spy for the King, whom he intended to kill to avenge his father’s murder; unfortunately the spy was actually Polonius, a relatively innocent character who was attempting to discern why Hamlet was

       Hamlet is organized around various pairs of opposing forces. One of these forces is the difference between that what seems and that which actually is, in other words, appearance versus reality. What is, and what merely appears to be? We can discern two principal angles from which this question is approached in Hamlet. First, we have the angle of inward and outward emotions, and the profound distinction that is drawn between them. In other words, the tranquil face that we all show to the world is never the same as the turmoil of our souls. In Hamlet, Shakespeare explores this both explicitly, through the device of the play within the play, and implicitly, through the ways in which he uses

Hamlet’s mad and vengeful nature towards avenging his father combined with the emotion that he displays at Ophelia’s funeral puts Hamlet as one of the most ambiguous characters of the play.

forgiven. He wants to repent for his sin, but he knows that he can’t because he is not truly sorry.

Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, begins with the appearance of a ghost, an apparition, possibly a hallucination. Thus, from the beginning, Shakespeare presents the air of uncertainty, of the unnatural, which drives the action of the play and develops in the protagonist as a struggle to clarify what only seems to be absolute and what is actually reality. Hamlet's mind, therefore, becomes the central force of the play, choosing the direction of the conflict by his decisions regarding his revenge and defining the outcome.