Hamlet’s Relationship With Women

 

 

 

Every story reflects the author's idea about a specific subject, being able to infer some characteristics of the author's life. In the article Hamlet and His Problems, T.S.Eliot focuses on the problems Shakespeare had, especially with making Hamlet. According to Eliot: "So far from being Shakespeare's masterpiece, the play is most certainly an artistic failure. In several ways the play is puzzling, and disquieting as is none of the others" (Hamlet and His Problems, Eliot). It is true that the rhyme and verses are not as perfect as in most of his other plays, but I don't think Shakespeare did a mistake. With this strange structure and puzzling events he created an environment of confusion in the reader, reflecting the state of Hamlet's mind. The constant confusion is present in Hamlet's mind and specifically in his relationship with women. He doesn't know whether his mother is in his side, supporting him like a mom is expected to, or in his uncle's side and being the accomplice of his father's death. If I was Hamlet in this case it would be very difficult for me to trust my mom. I know that she is my mom, but what I don't know is how much she prefers Claudius over me. It would be very confusing to be Hamlet, not being able to know who is in which side and ultimately who can he trust his secrets and be sure that they wouldn't be revealed to Claudius.

In this play there are only two women that constantly appear, Ophelia and Gertrude, and the way he interacts with them varies a lot. Hamlet when he talks to Ophelia he is in a constant tone change, talking smoothly to her about his problems and being kind to her, but rapidly shifting to an aggressive tone. While watching the documentary Discovering Hamlet,
the body language and tone the actors displayed when enacting certain roles, emphasized on their mood.

 

The way the tone changed in the scene of Hamlet's soliloquy towards Ophelia was extreme. Starting by crying about his problems to her with a soft and gentle tone and rapidly changing by pushing her to the ground and shifting into an accusing tone. I don't really think that Hamlet should have pushed Ophelia to the ground because that is definitely not the way to treat a woman, but I do understand Hamlet's feelings. He has nobody to trust and just when he thinks that he has found that person, reality shows him that Ophelia is the daughter of Polonius, one of the followers of his uncle. While facing his mother, he wields a dagger in his hand, making strong aggressive movements towards her as well as strong verbal attacks. In both occasions Hamlet has been blinded by anger and has simply forgotten that they are women, making him become more aggressive and menacing. On the other hand this could have been the natural way that Hamlet treated women, showing them his strength over them and making them obey his orders. Hamlet's actions towards women are not clear, but generally they could be described as aggressive and scarcely tolerant. If Ophelia wasn't the daughter of Polonius Hamlet's attitude towards her would be different because by the tone and corporal language he uses to talk to her, we can see that there is still some love towards her. The tone he uses towards Gertrude is very different, always aggressive and reproaching her actions.

We already know Hamlet's relationship with women, but how about Shakespeare's. If I were to predict Shakespeare's relationship with women I would say it would be troubled and a lot like Hamlet's. According to the article
The Material And Sources Of Dreams : "this as proof that he wishes any of them dead now. The theory of dreams does not go as far as to require this; it is satisfied with concluding that the dreamer has wished them dead at some time or other during his childhood" (The Material And Sources Of Dreams). According
to this theory, at any moment that one hates someone and wishes this person's death, this event could become reality but in a dream. Hamlet's relationship with death in the story is clearly directed towards Claudius. I wonder if at any moment he dreamed of his mother's death. Maybe Shakespeare had these kinds of dreams with his mother and didn't have a good relationship with women, expressing his relationship with his mother and women through Hamlet's relationship with Gertrude and Ophelia. After reading this article, there was a question that was left unanswered. Are there any cases where someone has killed a person, and prior to that dreamed about this killing? Did Claudius dream about killing his brother? The fighting of brothers is also expressed by saying "Let us first of all consider the relation of children to their brothers and sisters. I do not know why we presuppose that it must be a loving one, since examples of enmity among adult brothers and sisters are frequent in everyone's experience" (The Material And Sources Of Dreams). I think that this fact may answer my question, meaning that Claudius and Hamlet's father probably had fights in their childhood, wishing the death of the other. The difference in this case with most of the cases in the world is that Claudius did end up killing his brother. In fact I have experienced small fights with my sister when I was little, and a while ago I dreamed that one night that a tornado came destroying my house and taking my whole family with it. It is not a current wish I have but probably in my childhood I was mad one day at my whole family and that dream was born from that instant of anger.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Venturesome

 

 

 

 

 

Paranoia

 

 

Piety

 

 

Sporadic

 

 

Intractability

 

 

Bafflement

Act III: Thinking Before Acting Or Acting Before Thinking

There are people that just don't think before they act, making their decisions with little thinking time and letting themselves be guided by emotions rather than reason. If there would be enough time to be able to think thoroughly the outcomes of each decision, many wrong decisions could be avoided. The more thinking and analyzing the better because in that way the amount of regret that a person will have after seeing the consequences will decrease, because he already knew that was going to happen an chose that to happen. Claudius is a clear example of a person that doesn't think before acting, killing his brother to get the kingdom and his wife. According to Claudius: "Of those effects for which I did the murder: my crown, mine own ambition, and my queen. May one be pardoned and retain th' offense" (Act III sc iii ln58). The kingdom, his ambition, and his brother's wife were clearly what motivated Claudius into killing Hamlet's dad. Once he did this he obtained all his desired goals, but after a while he is repenting this action. The second part of the maxim is asking God whether a person who has committed that crime can be forgiven and accepted into heaven, finding a negative response. Claudius is clearly regretting what he has done and wants to return to the state he was at before doing that, before killing his brother, which means that he didn't analyze thoroughly the outcomes before committing the crime, therefore acting before thinking.

Hamlet, in the other hand, could be described as a person who thinks before he acts. He doesn't like what destiny set up for him, but he will not regret his actions because the revenge that his father has asked him to do, is his father's will. Hamlet thinks a lot more in comparison to his uncle when faced with killing someone, shown by the amount of thinking done by him of all the outcomes that could happen. In fact most of the play is Hamlet doubting whether to kill his uncle or not to kill him, to be or not to be. It can be most clearly seen when Hamlet says: "And so am I revenged. That would be scanned: A villain kills my father, and for that, I , his sole son, do this same villain send to heaven" (Act III sc iii ln 80). Hamlet's objective is to kill his uncle in revenge, which would be accomplished if he kills him now. He then realizes that if he were to kill him now, his revenge will be satisfied, but his uncle, a killer, would be sent to heaven because he was killed while praying. After having analyzed these outcomes he didn't kill him and decided to wait for an opportunity where he would be sent to hell instead of heaven. The analysis that went through Hamlet's mind before deciding to kill him or not shows that he thinks a lot about his actions before acting, deciding on a critical issue which is killing. Hamlet, using the analysis of the outcomes, will not regret his decision and see that if he had acted, Claudius would be in heaven. Claudius in the other hand would have acted immediately and killed him sending him to heaven. This shows the difference in ways of thinking between Claudius and Hamlet, making Hamlet regret less because he thinks better before acting.

Hamlet Act III: Hamlet’s Good Friend Horatio

Hamlet's tone and way of talking to everyone is different than the way he talks to Horatio. Horatio is his loyal friend, who has never left his side, in other words the only person Hamlet still trusts. His way of speaking to everyone in the play and even when he speaks to the public, sounds as hiding a deep sense of anger and revenge, something that he doesn't show when talking to his dear friend. Horatio, being the only person trusted by Hamlet, is given by Hamlet the task to observe Claudius's reaction to the play they are about to see. He asks his favor by saying "I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot, even with the very comment of thy soul observe my uncle" (Act III Sc ii ln 83). First Hamlet is asking a favor to Horatio by starting with "I prithee", being a rare word used by him throughout the play. Hamlet doesn't ask a lot of favors throughout the play, rather he addresses the other characters more aggressively and with direct orders being more like commands. Shakespeare uses this difference in tone of speech to show the affection he has towards Horatio, being the last person he has left and his accomplice in his final act.

Horatio's task is to observe Claudius while the act is being put on, with the comment of his soul. The word soul is used to refer to the way he must see the king's reaction. Soul is a word that evokes truth being that the soul is pure, therefore unable to lie. Hamlet is asking his loyal friend to do everything according to his soul, to do what is right, to help out his friend. The word soul could have also been used in this part meaning with meticulous care and being aware of every detail. In the end the reaction of the kings wasn't as secret, standing up and walking away from the play. Hamlet also talks to Horatio by saying "This realm dismantled was […] and now reigns here a very very- pajock" (Act III sc ii ln 307). The way Hamlet speaks to Horatio wouldn't be the same way he would speak to any character, including his mother. The realm being dismantled is the uncovering of the crime. In these two lines Hamlet summarizes the outcomes of the plan they carried out, observing Claudius's reaction to the play which was to run away, reconfirming the fact that the ghost had said. A pajock is a peacock, which in the time of Shakespeare meant a lustful and cruel person. When Hamlet said this he is saying that of the king. He is actually insulting the king in his kingdom, but again he is saying that to his good friend Horatio knowing that he is in his side.

Hamlet Act III: To Live Or To Sleep

The soliloquy through which Hamlet first talks in Act III, is the most known soliloquy of the book, which starts with the questioning of "To be or not to be" (Act III, Sc i, ln 64). This questioning is the basic idea of life, in making decisions there is always the outcomes of doing an action as well as the ones of not doing it. The verb in this fragment could be replaced by many things and still have the same effect. The two main purposes are to show the contrary of choosing one or the other and the decision Hamlet has to do regarding killing. Another way the fragment could be said is, to be a killer or not to be a killer or, as his father would have liked it to be seen, to avenge his father's death or not to do it. This, being the introduction to the soliloquy I suspected that Hamlet throughout his lines will propose the two outcomes of the options he is being proposed, to avenge his father's death by killing his uncle or do nothing to accomplish his father's wish.

Hamlet then proposes an idea that I would have never expected which is for him to die, when he says: "To die, to sleep-No more- and by a sleep to say we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks […] Must give us pause. There's the respect" (Act III, Sc i, ln: 68-76). There are many words in this fragment of the soliloquy showing the contrast between life and death, as the contrast was shown previously between doing something and not doing it. The first two words which are die and sleep, show similar ideas, dying is the same as sleeping forever because no real life events happen anymore. When you sleep time freezes and it only seems to continue its natural going when you wake up, and if you happen to never wake up then reality is lost forever. To sleep no more is to be back in reality making the comparison between sleeping forever or dying, or never sleeping and being in reality for ever. The heart ache and the natural shocks are the beating of the heart and the pulse a person has, which are vital to life. Hamlet emphasizes sleep by mentioning it for the second time as the key to end those vital signs, suggesting that sleep is death. In those lines Hamlet is contrasting the things in real life to death and clearly emphasizes that the failing of the vital signs will be achieved by sleeping. The last two important words capture the essence of the fragment because Hamlet wants this pause which will lead to respect. The pause is sleeping and the final goal after life is respect according to him. Therefore, it can be concluded that Hamlet sees that eternal sleep is the only true way to stop the vital signs, ceasing to exist and achieving what is most important which is respect.

This American Life Act V: Kill Or Not To Kill?

To kill or not to kill is a dilemma, which all the prisoners of the Missouri Eastern Correctional Institute have felt in certain moment in life, specifically in the action that made them end up in this high security jail. In the moment of the action, when each person made up their mind and found no rest until killing, there were such intense emotions of revenge and of thirst of blood, that not even the consequences would stop these individuals. After they have successfully done their act, these criminals had a lot of after thoughts and many say they feel bad, bad because they didn't really think thoroughly their decision. They felt so bad about their actions, even to the point where one of the criminals calls himself and includes all the inmates in this statement, cowards because they killed with an unfair advantage. Drawing out a gun or weapon and assaulting a person without this gives them an unfair advantage, one that according to him only cowards use. The motivations for these acts of violence are many, but that doesn't mean that it justifies the action, and there is the case where one inmate became a criminal because where he came from, that was the way to be famous in the neighborhood and be the best.

In Hamlet, the situation is not as different as the situation each criminal must have faced before committing the crime, in fact I think it is the most similar example that can be found in life. Hamlet's father asks him, through his appearance as a ghost, that he must avenge his murder by becoming a killer slaying his uncle. His father is asking him to become a killer by slaying a killer. I don't think that the motivation, regardless of whatever it is, is enough to end in a murder, but I say this because I haven't been faced with the situation where the incident provokes me so much, that I would be motivated to kill. I hope that in that moment I would be able to choose wisely, but there must be a special bond that the criminals must feel while interpreting Hamlet, which most people can't feel. As described by Mellow Johnson, who plays Hamlet, says "that he draws upon the idea of wanting to hurt someone, which has been experienced by him when he shot two people" (This American Life ACT V 08:05). Wanting to hurt someone is a feeling that Hamlet feels when he discovered that his father was killed by his uncle, similar to the feeling Johnson felt when he wanted to hurt someone, even to the death of the person. My experience when reading Hamlet wouldn't be as real as the one felt by the criminals. I haven't really felt the anger to the extent where I will only be satisfied when a person id killed, but I have been angry and felt the need to hurt someone. I have pondered long hours about what I am going to do, looking at the consequences if I do it or not, but I don't end up killing a person. I understand Hamlet's position while I read the book, but not to that extent as it is done by the inmates of the Missouri Eastern Correctional Institute, which in the end did what Hamlet's father is asking him to do, kill.

Hamlet Soliloquies: The Environment By The Objects And Corporal Expressions

The way an actor displays the emotions of the character has a huge impact on the way the scene is carried out. The actor in the case of Hamlet directed by Kenneth Branagh manages to display the character's emotions as well as its feelings through body language, also the way the actor interacts with his surroundings. The first frame we see a very huge ceiling with Hamlet, but the ratio of size is very different, the ceiling being about five times bigger than the actor. Branagh did this to show the impotence of Hamlet when facing the problems and also the feeling of being lost and inferior. Following this frame, Hamlet appears in a crouched position, facing the ground and kneeling on the chairs, showing him as troubled by something. The way his body is placed shows the viewer that Hamlet is sad about something because he is looking downwards, in addition by placing him with his weight supported by the chairs he is seen as weak. The soliloquy that Hamlet says, shows how he feels about the marriage between her mother and his uncle and the fact that his mother had so soon forgoten his father and replaced him with another man. The emotions portrayed by the actor are parallel to the words being spoken by him, both talking about sadness, the awful feeling of a loss as huge as a father, and the impotence of him having no power over his mother's decision.

The interpretation of Hamlet done by Tennant, Stewart, and Downie shows a different soliloquy than the one done by Branagh, but the same aspects to communicate the emotions of the characters to the audience are clear. The first action that the actor takes is to got to disable the camera, rushing quickly towards it, climbing up and damaging it. In the way this is done by this actor it shows the desperation to get this done because after doing this act he throws the camera away and procedes to sit down. This throwing of the object shows that there is anger present in Hamlet's heart in that moment, destroying the control over him done by the camera. There is also a moment later in the clip where the position of the body shows all that the character wants to express in this scene, which is vegeance. When he screams this word, the position of joining hands and pulling them up, more like a position of someone about to hit a persons head, shows the need to transmit this vengeance into acts. The words spoken throughout this soliloqoy are also defiant and he is talikng about a villan which he wants to take vengeance upon. The actions taken with the surroundings show how the villan is constantly looking upon Hamlet through the camera and his action of destroying it demostrates the audience the need to stop this villans acts as well as the striking pose taken upon the saying of the word vengeance. These visual effects used by the directors show the emotional side of the characters, but this environment created not only transmits the message to the viewer but it also draws him into wanting to see more of the piece.

The two clips of Hamlet I found to be very interesting because they managed to transmit the emotions of the character and the atmosphere they are in, hooking the reader to the clip in a very effective way. The opening scene of a clip or a movie is the most important part, or the part where the director tries to show an image that will most likely capture or cultivate the viewer's interest, making him thirsty for more of the movie. I am not a movie critic or have any license in films, but I know, like most of the public, that when a movie starts off in a bad way then it won't probably be the best movie. If I enter a comedy film then I expect moments when I laugh, after seeing fifteen to twenty minutes of it and not a single laugh of myself or the audience I start to doubt the quality of the movie. I hate movies that don't strive to grab the viewers attention because sometimes the effect is people walking out of the movie, doing it myself in occasions where the movie is incredibly boring.

Krapp’s Last Tape: Altering Of Time In Memories

The immortalization of an event in time is something achieved only if there is a written, filmed or painted record of it, the importance and magnitude of the work of art affecting the time it will be remembered. Krapp through the use of recordings manages to save his memories for a long time, accessing that personal memory bank created in the boxes from where he extracts a reel or memory to be played in his mind. The time the memory will last would only be determined by Krapp, depending on the significance of the vent in his life it could change the time, but the most essential thing is that he can access whenever he desires his memories. After I saw Krapp do this I decided to do the same thing, remembering that I was forced to do a diary of my trip to Amazonas in Spanish class, thinking it would never be important for anything in my life, but proving contrary when I read it. I read all the things I experienced while I was there, the extreme humidity, the sounds of the jungle and the day we ventured in the jungle. While I read the diary all these images passed through my mind enacting a movie of my trip while I read, finding out that these diary was really useful to remember things that I thought I will never forget, but the time erased them from my memory.

This was a great experience and time changed its speed. The time I took actually reading the diary was 20 minutes, but it seemed as if had passed an hour or more. The time passed very slowly and almost like stopping at certain points, making me feel again in the trip where it was difficult to determine the time, since in the jungle the amount of light visible is the same throughout the day which is very little. Krapp must have had a similar experience when listening to his tape regarding time. Even though there were parts where he forwarded and rewinded the tape, the passing of time also changed because his mind was drawn back into his past and made him experience the event again. At the beginning of the play the narrator says: "Krapp remains a moment motionless, heaves a great sigh, looks at his watch, fumbles in his pockets, takes out an evelope, puts it back, fumbles" (Beckett). There are two words in this maxim that show time which are the watch and moment, making time an important factor in this line. This part was in the beginning of the play which suggests the reader that the time will be affected throughout the play, changing from fast to slow. These happens when Krapp forwards the tape and rewinds it, altering the natural time passage of his memory, something done on purpose to reach the desired part but losing the real meaning of a memory which is to re-live the experience.