Ophelia and Gertrude Essay

Ophelia and Gertrude EssayThe classical and world-renowned Shakespeargonan tactics Ham entirelyow has two very owing(p) and important female characters as the main(prenominal) roles, Ophelia and Gertrude. As to a surprise, they argon similar in some(prenominal) ways. This essay will inform the reader ab break their similarities or analogousness. It is quite obvious that both(prenominal) Gertrude and Ophelia are both motivated by cheat and a desire for quiet familial harmony among the members of their federation in Elsinore. Out of love for her son does Gertrude adviseDear sm both town, cast thy nighted color off,And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.Do not for ever with thy vailed lids essay for thy noble father in the dust. (1.2)Likewise does she ask that the prince remain with the family Let not thy mother retrogress her prayers, juncture, / I pray thee stay with us, go not to Wittenberg. Later, when the heros supposed rage is the big concern, Gertrude harmi ngly sides with her hubby in the analysis of her sons condition I doubt it is no other but the main, / His fathers death and our oerhasty marriage. She confides her family-supporting thoughts to Ophelia And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish / That your crac pansy beauties be the happy cause / Of Hamlets wildness, thereby attempting to keep a loving family with the young lady of the court, hitherto though the latter is of a lower social stratum. When Claudius requests of Gertrude, refreshful Gertrude, leave us too / For we deal closely sent for Hamlet hither, Gertrude responds submissively, I shall obey you.familial love is first among Gertrudes priorities. When, at the presentation of The Mousetrap, she makes a request of her son, Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me, and he spurns her to lie at Ophelias feet, Gertrude is not offended her loyalty to family overrides such slights. She considers Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to be friends of her son, and only for that close se nds them to learn about him she would never use them as Claudius later does in an attempt to transfer Hamlet. And steady at the moment of her death, her last words include, O my dear Hamlet. Yes, Gertrude is pro-family.Ophelia manifest great familial softheartednessIn similar fashion does Ophelia manifest great familial lovingness, agreeing to comply with the advice of her associate Laertes I shall the heart of this good lesson keep / As watchman to my heart. When her father, Polonius, makes inquiry regarding the private time which Hamlet has been giving to Ophelia, she replies unreservedly, He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders / Of his warmheartedness to me, and elaborates mightily on the subject. Polonius insists that she from this time forth not recall words or talk with the Lord Hamlet, and Ophelia dutifully complies with his wishes I shall obey, my lord. She later even gives him her love-letters from Hamlet. When she acts as a decoy so that Polonius and Claudius can observe the prince, resulting in Ophelias chastisement by the protagonist, she nevertheless keeps him as the main focus in her life O, what a noble mind is here oerthrown Her love for brother, father, boyfriend, and others generally, override her love of self. Her respect for the opinions of immediate family is greater than her respect for her own opinions even in the matter of her courtship.Bonds of family and friendsAnother law of similarity between these two lady-characters is that they suffer from a severing of the bonds of family and friends. Gertrude is displeased with Hamlet when, with The Mousetrap, he upsets King Claudius Guildenstern says to Hamlet, The Queen, your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you. And when the hero meets with his mother, her concern is Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended. Of course, Gertrudes heartache over the kings upset is soon upstaged by her sons killing of Polonius behind the arras O me, what hast thou do? and O, what a rash and bloody deed is this Gertrude, unaware of Claudius murder of King Hamlet, probes the prince for the cause of the disturbance inside him What have I done, that thou darst wag thy tongue / In noise so rude against me? and Ay me, what act, / That roars so loud and thunders in the index? Even when Hamlet has afflicted his mothers soul with great distress, she still tries to write the mother-son relationship by referring to him as sweet O speak to me no more / These words like daggers enter in my ears. / No more, sweet Hamlet Even after Hamlet has done long emotional damage (O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.) Gertrude still tries to keep the familial bond from being totally severed by asking What shall I do? and by not revealing to Claudius that her son mistook Polonius for his uncle. Similarly, Ophelia suffers from the severing of the bonds of family and friends. She is traumatized by Hamlets visit after the ghosts appearance, when he has assumed the antic disposition, with his doublet all unbraced / No hat upon his head his stockings fould, and other aspects which make him appear as one loosed out of hell. Frank Kermode says that this antic disposition is a foil to Ophelias coming madness (1137). Polonius asks, Mad for thy love? and Ophelia responds, My lord, I do not know / But truly, I do fear it. This is a time of skepticism for her, for she has invested herself heavily in the love for Hamlet, and her filial love (Coleridge 353). When she later agrees to be a lure for Hamlet so that her father and the king can study his conduct in her presence, she feels the full loss of the princes affection for herGet thee to a nunnery why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? . . . We are arrant knaves all believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery. The severance of the ties with Hamlet cause her to pray for helper O, help him, you sweet heavens and O heavenly powers, restore him and O, woe is me, / To have seen what I have seen, see what I see Later, as the Mousetrap begins, Ophelia readily consents (Lady, shall I lie in your circumference?) to Hamlets resting his head on her lap Ay, my lord, hoping to somewhat restore a dying relationship along with the heros sanity. And she cannot be too agreeable in her efforts with him You are as good as a chorus, my lord, and You are keen, my lord, you are keen.Male influencesBoth Ophelia and Gertrude are victimized by male influences in the play. Ophelia is interfered with in her love-life by her brother Laertes, her father Polonius and by Hamlet himself. She is presented almost entirely as a victim (Boklund 123).Gertrude is intruded upon in her relationship with Claudius by Hamlet, by Laertes and by Claudius. The rejection of Ophelia by the prince, plus the loss of her father at Hamlets hands, brings about madness in Ophelia, and later indirectly her death. The devious machinations of Laertes and Claudius effect the accidental death of Queen Gertrude, who imbibes the p oisoned loving cup.DeathsBoth Ophelia and Gertrude decompose incidental, unostentatious deaths of no special moment. Hamlets death and royal burial by Fortinbras is in sharp transmission line to the passing of these ladies. Ophelias demise is publicized by the queen One woe doth tread upon anothers heel, / So unfluctuating they follow your sisters drownd, Laertes. That Laertes should respond with the question, Drownd O, where? seems out of place, since the most logical question from a loved one would be, How? or Why? The queen replies that her garments, heavy with their drink, / Pulld the poor wretch from her melodious lay / To muddy death. Laertes says briefly, Alas, then, she is drownd? and the queen even more briefly, Drownd, drownd. Until the reaction of Laertes and Hamlet in the grave, Ophelias passing seems to go almost unnoticed. Likewise, when Queen Gertrude later drinks from the poisoned cup on the occasion of the Laertes-Hamlet contest of foils, she experiences a quick, quiet death No, no, the drink, the drink,O my dear Hamlet, / The drink, the drink I am poisond. And there is no more to the matter, possibly because everyone else is dying at the same time.Another experience which both Ophelia and Gertrude have in common is that they are both attacked verbally by Hamlet. When the prince suspects that Ophelia is a lure (Coleridge 362), he lambasts her with Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool for wise men know wellhead enough what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go, and quickly too. Farewell.The QueenThe queen also bears the brunt of Hamlets melancholic mood. After the play within a play Gertrude asks to see her son, who comes immediately but not in a good humor. At one point he is so aggressive that she thinks perhaps he is going to murder her A bloody deed Almost as bad, good mother,/As kill a king and marry with his brother. This alarms the queen, who blurts out, As kill a king in her appalled mental state, shortly followed by Wh at have I done, that thou darst wag thy tongue/In noise so rude against me? Hamlet leaves the queen in an emotionally spent condition I have no life to blow over / What thou hast said to me.Both Ophelia and Gertrude possess complex temperament and motivation, thus qualify as rounded, not flat or two-dimensional, characters (Abrams 33). Also both women have a delicacy about them. In identification of this delicacy, the ghost asks the protagonist to disregard revenge on Gertrude Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul flip / Against thy mother aught. Ophelias delicacy is revealed in the appearance of her insanity and later death resulting from the loss of her father and the affection of her boyfriend.WORKS CITEDAbrams, M. H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. 7th ed. New York Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1999.Boklund, Gunnar. Hamlet. Essays on Shakespeare. Ed. Gerald Chapman. Princeton, NJ Princeton University Press, 1965.Burton, Philip. Hamlet. The bushel Voice. New York The Dial P ress, 1970. N. pag. http//www.freehomepages.com/hamlet/other/burton-hamlet.htmColeridge, Samuel Taylor. Lectures and Notes on Shakspere and Other English Poets. London George Bell and Sons, 1904. p. 342-368. http//ds.dial.pipex.com/thomas_larque/ham1-col.htmKermode, Frank. Hamlet. The riverbank Shakespeare. Ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston Houghton Mifflin Co., 1974.Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 1995. http//www.chemicool.com/Shakespeare/hamlet/full.html No line nos.