In The Tragedy of Hamlet, Hamlet has a unique relationship with Ophelia. Throughout the beginning of the play you learn very little about their relationship. Their relationship was referenced however. In the beginning of the play, Laertes warns Ophelia about Hamlet, claiming he does not actually love Ophelia. Throughout the play it is implied that Hamlet and Ophelia were involved with one another, but never showed the details of their "love." Soon after Hamlet discovers his father 's death was not of natural causes, but in fact he was poisoned by his own brother, Claudius; he begins to act as if he has been taken by insanity. During this time, his insanity was nearly indistinguishable. During his "acting" he even claimed he wasn 't in love with Ophelia, he told her, "Ay, truly, for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness. This was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once." This brings up a lot of questions as to if Hamlet ever truly loved her in the first place. If he claims he doesn 't love her anymore, then it must be true, because how can you say …show more content…
Despite all the reasons throughout the play to show that Hamlet did not in fact love Ophelia, I believe he may have loved her in some sense. Hamlet may or may not have been hopelessly in love with Ophelia but he definitely felt some sort of love for her. Evidence of his love for her is shown massively by how he responds to learning of about her unfortunate death. In Act V, it is revealed that Ophelia had drowned herself, later in the act, Hamlet discovers the truth. Hamlet becomes so distressed he leaps into Ophelia 's grave. He then follows with, "I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers Could not with all their quantity of love Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?" As his way to fiercely reinstate that he truly loves Ophelia. Hamlet even begins to tell them to bury him
Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a revenge calamity which concentrates on his wish and effort to solve his father’s murder. Throughout the course of the play, the relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia could be described as a rollercoaster. Although Ophelia is not in every single scene in Hamlet, her impact on the play is highly noted. One way a reader could interpret her presence is because of how tragic her experiences in life is. She experiences the misfortune of love and security, but in order for her death to be truly tragic, she has to come to terms with the realization of her powerlessness without the men in her life.
Hamlet repeatedly acknowledges his faults, most precisely to her. In conversation, he tells Ophelia how he is guilty of such terrible things that he shouldn’t have been born, and that he proud, revengeful, and ambitious (3.1.132-135). Hamlet is fully telling her his faults and that, while being scathing towards her, he is no better. Even after her death, he continues to express his flaws around her presence. This is seen at her funeral, for which he says to her brother, Laertes, “For though I am splenitive and rash, I have in me something dangerous, which let thy wisdom fear,” (5.1.275-276).
These characteristics of Hamlet’s can be shown through him expressing, “you should not have believed me: for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it: I loved you not.” (3.1.117-119). Hamlet explains this to his love interest Ophelia, whose relationship with Hamlet is quick to begin and end. Hamlet’s mass deception throughout the play of “pretending to be mad” hurts many relationships. Through this quote, Hamlet tells Ophelia that he never loved her, however through prior quotes, this is hard to believe.
In conclusion, it can be proven that Hamlet truly does love Ophelia. He pretends he isn’t in love with her kind of like in real life. Sometimes people pretend they not care for the people they really care for the most, just like Hamlet did to
All of Hamlet’s comments towards Ophelia suggest that he feels betrayed. Hamlet and Ophelia showed each other true love but both were mad after their fathers’ deaths. Hamlet was acting mad to have revenge while Ophelia was truly mad. During Ophelia’s funeral, Hamlet stated “I loved Ophelia; forty thousand brothers could not with all their quantity of love make up my sum”, expressing his true feelings towards her. Ophelia’s betrayal and lies to Hamlet in Act 3 deeply hurt his feelings causing Hamlet to hate
Hamlet's views on love could be ruined because of his mother's relationship with his father and how she got over him so quickly and married his uncle Claudius. Hamlet is also protecting Ophelia from getting hurt with his plans of revenge or protecting her from his uncle knowing he would use her as a way of hurting him. Hamlet shows his love for Ophelia in many different ways throughout the play. the first way Hamlet shows his love towards Ophelia is with
The type of love felt by Hamlet and Laertes is quite different. Ophelia is the sister of Laertes and therefore he has brotherly love for her. Before leaving Denmark, Laertes advises against relations with Hamlet. He remarks on the love Hamlet has for Ophelia as being “The perfume and suppliance of a minute,/ No more.” (I, iii, 9-10)
Hamlet once again fails to understand that Ophelia much like himself is only trying to stay loyal to her father, much like what he is doing himself. In addition, Hamlet blames woman for giving birth to such evil and deceiving men like Claudius and himself. When he was talking to Ophelia he told her "Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better
They did sleep together, and then Hamlet told Ophelia that she needed to go to a nunnery and that he would never marry a girl who slept around. Ophelia's feelings turned around and she felt very disrespected by
Hamlet has not only become distraught from his conniving and lying stepfather but also his mother, Queen Gertrude as well. The unfaithfulness that Gertrude shows to Hamlet’s father and Hamlet has a toll on him and plays a part in his insanity. The facade that Hamlet displays slowly leads to his insanity, causing him to show mistreated love towards Ophelia. In the beginning of the play, Ophelia displays a very honest
Love is a very strong feeling and it 's portrayed in many ways. In Hamlet, Ophelia, the daughter of Polonius, has fallen for The young Prince Hamlet. In the play, Hamlet confuses us in the beginning because we think he’s just using her for pleasure, and not that he actually has feelings for her. But at the end of the story, we see a whole other side to the story. We see how much he actually loves her and not that he was using her for his own needs.
In Act III, scene i of The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare, readers will come upon Ophelia’s soliloquy. After Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have failed to find a reason as to why Hamlet is acting in a peculiar and mad way, Claudius is persuaded by Polonius that the reason for Hamlet’s madness is the broken romance between Hamlet and Ophelia. To prove this, Claudius and Polonius plan to spy on Ophelia’s meeting with Hamlet. During their conversation, Hamlet denies ever having loved her and curses her. Ophelia is left fretting over his sanity.
Saying this, Hamlet’s behavior towards Ophelia is crude, rough, and full of anger. Despite Hamlet’s harsh treatment towards Ophelia, he really did love her, but because she was not his main focus, the
Hamlet does not value Ophelia 's feelings he belittles her. In Hamlets defense this is the way he was brought up to treat women, during that time this was a common way to treat a women. Even though in today 's society it is not at all ok to treat women with such disrespect. He also likes for everything to go as planned and this may result in why he can not have a stable relationship with a woman. This also causes him to have many stumbling blocks in his life that causes some emotional pain
By attempting to leave Hamlet, Ophelia betrays him. This betrayal initially stirs confusion and later sparks anger when she tries to return the letters that Hamlet wrote to her. This anger was then projected into the hurtful insults that Hamlet used to harm Ophelia. This anger shows that Hamlet did, and still loves Ophelia. While Ophelia too has the same tender loving feeling for Hamlet, she is insanely submissive to her father (and other characters for that matter).