Bad Parenting

Ophelia has legitimately gone insane, and it is largely due to bad parenting on the part of Polonius. She is a fairly flat character, who, like various other women in Shakespeare’s plays (Gertrude being one of them), is seen in terms of her sexuality, chastity, and ability to reproduce, and shows no evidence of having a mind of her own as she is consistently told what to do and think by the men in her life, particularly her father. Because she is accustomed to having little to no control over her life and to live off of the instructions given to her by men, she becomes lost after her father’s death and goes completely mad. She speaks mostly through song in act 4; this is a moment in Shakespeare play where song is meaningful and the lyrics should be closely considered (like a couple of the songs in Much Ado About Nothing).
Right away, in her talk with Gertrude in scene five, she sings, “How should I, your true love know / From another one?” (IV.v.22). She expresses confusion and is perhaps questioning her feelings for Hamlet which stands to reason given the history of their relationship. Throughout Ophelia’s entire relationship with Hamlet, she has been told how to act and feel by her father and Laertes. In fact, it is quite likely that throughout her entire relationship with Hamlet, she never acted on account of solely her own feelings, without the influence of her father and brother’s opinions and demands. Because of her dependency on her father--especially in relation to her relationship with Hamlet--she is left not only without a father, but also with a lack of direction and mind of her own. 
It is part of a parent’s job to encourage their children to think for themselves and to make their own decisions in order to better prepare them to go out into the world as an individual, away from their parents. Polonius does not prepare Ophelia for a life without him at all. He essentially raises her to be dependent on the men in her life, not encouraging her to develop her own sense of self, individuality, or independence. He does not account for their potential separation/his death and therefore leaves her feeling lost, confused, and vulnerable which leads to her eventual insanity. Maybe it was normal to raise daughters to be dependent on men in those days, or maybe this situation just further characterizes Polonius as being controlling of his daughter. Either way, it is an irresponsible and unfair way to raise a child as it leaves them defenseless against the world on their own. Polonius illustrates a sheer lack of good parenting throughout the play. Not only is he controlling of Ophelia, but he shows little concern for Laertes as well, and when he does concern himself with him, it is only to ensure that he is not tarnishing the reputation of the family as Laertes is said to be somewhat of a reckless young man who gets into trouble without regard for others--a stereotypical product of bad parenting.

Everyone has gone mad? Or have they?

In this week’s blog post I am going to be a little more risky. I typically would write about Ophelia, keeping with my theme of women in the play, but I am thinking that I might look at Ophelia and Hamlet and the way that my own religion helps me to determine if they have gone mad.

For some time it has been debated whether or not Hamlet has gone mad. Many of the characters have shared with each other, and particularly with Claudius and Gertrude, that the boy has gone crazy after his father’s death.

Ironically we see Ophelia enter into a world of “madness” as well. “All from her father’s death, and now behold!” (4.5.74). Now we have two characters that are driven mad because of their father’s deaths. Quite frankly Claudius is to blame for both deaths. If he had not killed his brother, Hamlet would not be in this state of revenge. If he had not killed his brother, he would not be with Gertrude and she would not have been confronted by Hamlet the way that she was and Polonius would still be alive.

I think the real question here though is if the characters really are mad or not. Is Hamlet mad? In the eyes of those during Shakespeare’s time I would guess that majority of the audience would think that he was not mad but was simply seeing his father’s ghost and needing to put his father’s soul to rest through revenge.

I read this play from a Catholic perspective. When I read these moments where Hamlet sees the ghost and some see it yet others do not, I have to believe that this is true. I have to believe that he really is being visited from someone who has died, but remains in purgatory. In my own faith, when someone close to us dies, we are given prayer cards, and we must pray for that person every night for 30 days so that they will ascend from purgatory to heaven.

As I am reading this play I can only see Hamlet as doing the things that needs to be done to put his father to rest. In this play Claudius says, “…and we have done but greenly in hugger-mugger to inter him” (4.5.81-82). Claudius talks about not giving Polonius a proper funeral, and that is also what my faith believes will keep a soul from reaching heaven.

I am curious how my peers read into this. If you do not share the same faith as me, do you see Hamlet as being mad rather than faithful to God? Do you see God as being angry for not giving Polonius a proper funeral? (This is what I am chalking up to Ophelia’s madness)

Ophelia, lost

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In act IV what stands out most to me is Ophelia.  She is an empty headed girl who lets the men in her life tell her what to do. She is so co- dependent that when her father dies she is  lost, literally. Ophelia loses her mind. She speaks in riddles as she can no longer make sense of the world without her father to tell her what to do. It is not evident to me whether or not Hamlet’s departure is a contributing factor to Ophelia’s madness because she does not outwardly demonstrate her feelings towards him.

When we first meet Ophelia her brother is warning her about Hamlet telling her to fear him, “Be wary then; best safety lies in fear;” (1.3.43). Twice more in the course of his speech, he cautions her to “fear” Hamlet. Laertes is instructing Ophelia not to think for herself but just to be afraid.  Immediately after her she receives the third degree from Laertes, her father proceeds to instruct her on how to conduct herself. At no point does she assert herself. She does tell her father, “I don’t know, my lord, what I should think” (1.4.104) but does concede to “obey”.

In the exchanges between Ophelia and Hamlet she is either void of emotion or being a dutiful pawn (daughter) in following her father’s plan.   Hamlet transposes his ill feelings towards his mother in the guise of concern for Ophelia’s wellbeing. He warns Ophelia of the danger she is to men and that she should lock herself away.  Hamlet speaks offensively to Ophelia yet she just tells him he is being impolite.  An implication of Hamlet & Ophelia’s familiarity is when he tells her, “It would cost you a groaning to take off mine edge” (3.2.228). I would think that this comment would be enough for a proper lady to get up and move away from such crude and obnoxious comments.

After hamlet murders Polonius, Ophelia is no longer coherent. She sings songs. One of the songs she sings alludes to a virgin to sleeping with a man and then his refusal to marry her. There is mention of shame, “Alack, and fie for shame!”(4.5.58). It could potentially be an implication to her relationship with Hamlet. If that is the case, it only strengthens my opinion that Ophelia is a week minded female because she should have known better than to sleep with Hamlet. Her father and brother’s repeated warnings should have resonated within her.   

Ophelia reminds me of a receptacle.  She takes her father and brother’s advice. She accepts Hamlets displaced aggression toward females. Finally without her father to fill her head she takes on water to fill the void.  My initial annoyance with the weak character Ophelia subsides when I think of her in this way. Instead it is sad but as Laertes reminds me, “Too much of water hast though poor Ophelia, And therefore I forbid my tears” (4.7.157-158).

*One of  my favorite John William Waterhouse's pieces.

 

Is Hamlet Mad?

 

 

In light of Professor Mulready’s blog post, I too will attempt to break habit this week. Normally, I argue my view through direct evidence from the text itself, but I think that it would be interesting and maybe beneficial if I argued my point using the post’s that others have written on subjects related to my thesis. So in this post I will try to answer the question: “Is Hamlet Mad?” in this way.

We hear reference to Hamlet’s insanity from a multitude of characters throughout the play.  Polonius bluntly states to the king and queen that their “noble son is mad” (II.II, 93) and his daughter Ophelia exclaims her concerns three times over, consecutively: “O help him, you sweet heavens!” (III.I, 134), “O heavenly powers, restore him!” (III.I, 141) and “O what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!” (III.I, 149). Even Hamlet’s mother thinks he is insane, she thinks he’s so mad that he will murder her in the third act! If I were a character in the play I would probably be considered mad for even proposing the possibility that Hamlet were sane, but I do see some evidence that he is.

As Julian Mocha explicated in the last blog posting and as we also see through Ophelia’s lines above, Hamlet is obviously very intelligent, and to quote, another “master of words”.  So, maybe it’s his words that make him seem mad.  Hamlet is blunt yet contradictingly sneaky as he turns everything into a riddle of sorts and therefore seems nonsensical. His words twist and turn in the readers’ brain as they do in the characters’, so although I can see where the notion that he is mad would come from, I would say that he is not mad but that he is “different”, as Kaitlyn Schleicher states in her blog. It seems to me that he is just uninterested in the hierarchy of society, the social climbers and “acting proper”. From how Hamlet dresses  to his atypical relationship with the queen, actually slandering her in a way that some might consider treasonous, as Krystal Haight points out, the evidence does seem to show that this is the case.

After all, the person no one worried about, the person who represents “nothing”, namely Ophelia, is really the one who becomes mad. So, I would assume that the other characters’ opinions of who is mad are unreliable as it is.

As a final thought, it might be interesting to investigate this relationship i.e. why everyone thinks there’s something wrong with Hamlet, but nobody questions Ophelia’s sanity, even though she’s the one that goes mad.