How Is Love Portrayed In Hamlet

As the innocent victim of Hamlet’s feigned madness, Ophelia’s insanity is a product of her inability to cope with Hamlet and her father’s death. Her songs show hidden grief and sorrow; her flowers represent the fact that beneath the innocent exterior, there is a weakness or flaw in everyone. Hamlet was able to look past his grief for his father’s death, but he caused someone he loves to be in pain. Whether it is the frailty of women, sorrow, or death, anything, including love, can appear to be pleasant, but can be the ultimate cause of a person’s

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.

Because of Hamlet’s actions towards Ophelia in the very beginning of the play is one reason how it can be seen the Hamlet truly does love Ophelia. An example of this can be seen throughout act one of the play. When Ophelia is taking

King Hamlet loved Gertrude with all his heart that he “might not beteem the winds of heaven visit her face too roughly” this represents true unforgettable love. Hamlet is exasperated about his mother’s hasty marriage that he claims a “beast that wants discourse of reason would have mourned longer”. Gertrude’s hasty marriage with Claudius seems to Hamlet as done with “wicked speed to post with such dexterity to incestous sheets” showing Hamlet is disgusted with this relationship and aggressively disapproves to this action. Further into the play Act 3 Scene 2, Hamlet is having a conservation with Ophelia when he mentions “look you how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within two hours” showing anger towards the happiness of his mother. Throughout the play Hamlet uncovers horrible deeds his uncle has committed, which were “Remorseless, Treacherous, lecherous”.

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

“This is the very ecstasy of love, Whose violent property fordoes itself ” (Shakespeare 2.1.1060). He blames Hamlet 's madness on Hamlet’s love for Ophelia. This contributes to the meaning of the work by showing that love, which leads to obligations, can be damaging to someone, for example, making sacrifices. Polonius then goes on to have his whole family destroyed because of the love that his children had for him. Claudius also uses the word love many times.

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)

The ability for an author, character, or actor to portray certain emotions is key and can potentially change the whole storyline of a play. Shakespeare's writing is no exception and may sometimes leave the reader confused. Throughout the play of Hamlet, there is a constant battle between love and revenge amongst the characters, which causes the reader to vacillate between the idea of which emotion the plot is based around. In the play, the protagonist, Hamlet, is confronted with the problem of his uncle marrying his mother and killing his father. Along the way he continues to contemplate whether or not to kill his uncle, Polonius.

Hamlet toyed with Ophelia’s emotion and pushed their relationship apart. Ophelia states how she was able to taste the sweetness of love, but at the same time hears his rejection as bells ringing in her ears. Just like Hamlet, the death of Ophelia's father, who she deeply loved and cared for, drove her insane. During Act IV Scene V, Horatio describes Ophelia as “importunate [and] indeed distract” (4.5. 1-2), as “she speaks much of her father [and] speaks things in doubt that carry but half sense” (4.5.4, 7).

Ophelia has a love for Hamlet, the audience sees this by her soliloquies, as well as the conversations with her father about Hamlet. Hamlet tells Ophelia that he never loved her, and she should go to a nunnery in act three scene one. “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).

There’s always that one girl that you will always love. That's how Hamlet felt about Ophelia. When Ophelia was talking to Polonius about Hamlet she says, “My lord, he hath importuned me with love In honorable fashion”(I,iii, 119-120). This expresses how much Hamlet loves her. Later on, she finds out that Hamlet killed her father which caused her great depression and led to suicide.

Throughout the play, Ophelia acts as a very honest person in the beginning, willing to tell Laertes and Polonius anything. She then receives mistreated love from Hamlet that leads her to drowning herself in a river. The true face and actions from Ophelia, Laertes, Polonius, Queen Gertrude, King Claudius, and particularly Hamlet lead to their deaths. The end result leads to unfortunate events, including death. The love throughout the kingdom of Denmark becomes toxic, killing all who lives

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.

Hamlet surely thought that his mother Gertrude dearly loved his father Old King Hamlet, now he may feel like his mother never loved his father. This may result in why he feels like he may not love Ophelia. We are also aware that Hamlet has trouble with his own happiness and this probably reflects on the way we feels towards people mostly women. Hamlet thinks that the reason real love does not exist is because of the female gender. Hamlet blames both his mother Gertrude and Ophelia for portraying men as monsters.

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.