Saturday, February 1, 2014

What 3 quotes from Hamlet demonstrate mental illness in Ophelia?

A good place to start to find quotes regarding Ophelia's
madness is clearly Act IV scene 5, when Ophelia is presented as being mad for the first
time. Note how Horatio describes Ophelia to Gertrude, who is adamant that she will not
see her:



She
is importunate, indeed distract,


Her mood will needs be
pitied.



The madness of
Ophelia is clearly indicated through her conversation with Gertrude and the kind of
nonsense she produces, giving testament to the deep level of mental suffering she is
experiencing. Note the following example:


readability="8">

They say the owl was a baker's daughter. Lord, we
know what we are, but know not what we may be. God be at your
table.



The way that ludicrous
speech is interspersed with serious sayings and her lack of formality and regard for the
King and Queen of Denmark clearly indicate the extent of her
madness.


Lastly, note the response of Laertes to seeing his
sister:



O
Heavens, is't possible a young maid's wits


Should be as
mortal as an old man's
life?



This quote clearly
links Ophelia's madness to its cause: the murder of their father, Polonius, which shows
the strength of Ophelia's emotion for her father, and, of course, for Hamlet, who killed
him.

No comments:

Post a Comment

What is the meaning of the 4th stanza of Eliot's Preludes, especially the lines "I am moved by fancies...Infinitely suffering thing".

A century old this year, T.S. Eliot's Preludes raises the curtain on his great modernist masterpieces, The Love...