The Impact of Ophelia on Shakespeares Hamlet Essay examples -- GCSE E

The Impact of Ophelia on Hamlet Michael Pennington in Ophelia Madness Her Only Safe Haven, elucidates the character of Ophelia in Shakespeares tragedy, Hamlet This is the woman she strength 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 stubbornness 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) This essay hopes to touch on many aspects of Ophelias character as she is victimized by circumstances and characters around her. The protagonist of the tragedy, Prince Hamlet, initially appears in the play dressed in solemn black, mourning the remnant of his father suppose dly by snakebite while he was away at Wittenberg as a student. Hamlet laments the hasty remarriage of his mother to his fathers brother, an incestuous act thus in his first soliloquy he cries out, Frailty, thy name is woman Ophelia enters the play with her brother Laertes, who, in parting for school, bids her farewell and gives her advice regarding her relationship with Hamlet. Ophelia agrees to await by the advice I shall the effect of this good lesson keep as watchman to my heart. Thus Ophelia must initially bend her will to please her brother. After Laertes departure, Polonius inquires of Ophelia concerning the snobbish time which Hamlet spends with her. He dismisses Hamlets overtures as Affection, puh... ...fe Haven. Readings on Hamlet. Ed. Don Nardo. San Diego Greenhaven Press, 1999. Rpt. from Hamlet A Users Guide. new-sprung(prenominal) York Limelight Editions, 1996. Pitt, Angela. Women in Shakespeares Tragedies. Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego G reenhaven Press, 1996. Excerpted from Shakespeares Women. N.p. n.p., 1981. Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 1995. http//www.chemicool.com/Shakespeare/hamlet/full.html Ward & Trent, et al. The Cambridge History of English and American Literature. New York G.P. Putnams Sons, 190721 New York Bartleby.com, 2000 http//www.bartleby.com/215/0816.html Wilkie, Brian and James Hurt. Shakespeare. Literature of the Western World. Ed. Brian Wilkie and James Hurt. New York Macmillan Publishing Co., 1992.