Hamlet 4:5 Flashcards
key elements of 4:5
- Ophelia’s madness is foisted upon the courtly audience - she embodies Denmark’s instability and ‘sickness’
- Gertrude’s coldness to Ophelia shows allegiance to Claudius
- Laertes emerges as a second foil to Hamlet (showing action and vengeance in similar circumstances)
- Claudius’ manipulation of Laertes
- the flowers conversation
Ophelia’s madness in 4:5
- she embodies Denmark’s instability and ‘sickness’
- the part is sometimes played with extreme disturbance, even suggesting schizophrenia
- forcing the audience to experience the discomfort of the other characters as they watch with pity and horror as she unravels
- Hamlet’s madness is a corruption of the intellect but Ophelia’s is corruption of feeling
two key versions of Hamlet 4:5
dir. Franco Zeffirelli, 1990 with Helena Bonham Carter as Ophelia:
- Ophelia is clearly mad, presented as childlike and dreamy
- cropped version of the scene with parts moved and removed
- uses sticks and bones in placement of the flowers
dir. Kenneth Branagh, 1996 with Kate Winslett as Ophelia:
- appears more mature than Bonham Carter’s Ophelia but still dreamy
- uses invisible flowers that are NOT handed out to characters
‘She speaks much of her…’
‘She speaks much of her father, says she hears/ There’s tricks i’th’ world’ - Gentleman to the Queen
- Ophelia, her focus is on her father, the cause of her madness
- ‘tricks’ refers to plots, introduces the idea that Ophelia - although mad - has a deeper understanding of what is going on (and is more free to express it)
‘Spurns…’
‘[Ophelia] Spurns enviously at straw, speaks things in doubt,/ That carry but half sense.’ - Claudius
- treats trifling matters with suspicion/takes offence at the smallest things
- ‘half sense’ - hard to find meaning, links to the following line about ‘botch the words up fit to their own thoughts’
‘Her speech is…’
‘Her speech is nothing,/ Yet the inshaped use of it doth move/ The hearers to collection; they yawn at it,/ And botch the words up to fit their own thoughts’ - Claudius about Ophelia
- the ‘hearers’ interpret her words themselves, aligns with their own thoughts/suspicions
‘Which, as her winks…’
‘Which, as her winks and nods and gestures yield them,/ Indeed would make one think there might be thought’ - Claudius about Ophelia
- “method in madness” idea
'’Twere good she were…’
'’Twere good she were spoken with; for she may strew/ Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.’ - Horatio
- these lines are sometimes given to Gertrude in other versions
- ‘strew’ perhaps looks forward to her later gifts of flowers
- “dangerous ideas in evil minds”
‘To my sick…’
‘To my sick soul, as sin’s true nature is,/ Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss. So full of artless jealousy is guilt.’ - Gertrude
- in relation to Ophelia
- ‘sick’ ‘sin’s’ ‘guilt’ imply Getrude feels some sense of responsibility or blame for Ophelia’s descent into madness
how is Ophelia presented when we first see her madness?
- ‘[Enter Ophelia distracted.]’
- ‘sings’ - fragments of song throughout
- sort of unaware of conversation topics, often depicted as childlike in her mannerisms
- her songs (up until the lament later) are inappropriate in the setting
Graham Holderness
- suggests that it was one of the conventions of Elizabethan drama that ‘insanity could express deep and important truths’
- the flowers as comments on the other characters around Ophelia
‘insanity could…’
Graham Holderness suggests that it was one of the conventions of Elizabethan drama that ‘insanity could express deep and important truths’
‘By his cockle…’
‘By his cockle hat and staff,/ And his sandal shoon.’
- Ophelia singing
- describing a typical religious pilgrim in medieval europe
- poets used the same description for the love sick
‘He is dead and…’
‘He is dead and gone, lady,/ At his head a grass-green turf,/ At his heels a stone.’ - Ophelia singing
- grave (buried)
- links to her subsequent songs about his ‘shroud’ and lack of funeral rites
‘White his…’
‘White his shroud as the mountain snow-‘ - Ophelia singing
- burial clothes
‘Larded with sweet…’
‘Larded with sweet flowers;/ Which bewept to the grave did not go/ With true-love showers.’ - Ophelia singing
- her father didn’t get a real funeral, with ‘sweet flowers’ and ‘true-love showers’
- ‘did not go’ - based on the rhythm of the ballad it is apparent that Ophelia has inserted the ‘not’
‘They say the owl…’
‘They say the owl was a baker’s daughter. Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be.’ - Ophelia
- situations can change quickly, don’t know what we’ll become
- sense of truth to her madness, she is able to express real feelings
‘All in the morning…’
‘All in the morning betime,/ And I a maid at your window,/ To be your Valentine.’ - Ophelia singing
‘Then up he rose…’
‘Then up he rose, and donn’d his clothes,/ And dupp’d the chamber-door;/ Let in the maid, that out a maid/ Never departed more.’ - Ophelia
- wasn’t a maid when she left (loss of virginity), link to Hamlet and what Laertes warned her about
- no longer has the sensitivity expected of her before - she is suggested to be sexually knowledgeable
Ophelia’s sexuality in some versions
in 18th and 19th century productions, the sexual songs were often cut (due to their sexual allusions) to construct Ophelia as pure and innocent
‘Young men will…’
‘Young men will do’t, if they come to’t;/ By Cock, they are to blame.’ - Ophelia singing
- ‘By Cock’ - double entendre
- young men will have sex if given the chance
‘Quoth she ‘Before you…’
‘Quoth she ‘Before you tumbled me,/ You promis’d me to wed.’’ - Ophelia singing
- this is what L and P warned her against
- ‘He answers:/ ‘So would I ‘a done, by yonder sun,/ An thou hadst not come to my bed’
- he would’ve married her if she hadn’t gone to his bed
- reminds of the Polonius and Laertes convo early in the play
‘I hope all will be well…’
‘I hope all will be well. We must be patient; but I cannot choose but weep to think they should lay him i’ th’ cold ground. My brother shall know of it’ - Ophelia
- very clear what she’s saying here
- knows her brother will seek vengeance
‘Follow her close…’
‘Follow her close; give her good watch, I pray you.’ - Claudius
- sense of care (breaks archetype of a machiavelli - ‘better to be feared than loved’)
- morality play
‘O, this is the…’
‘O, this is the poison of deep grief; it springs/ All from her father’s death.’ - Claudius (monologue to G)
‘When sorrows come…’
‘When sorrows come, they come not single spies,/ But in battalions!’ - Claudius
‘the people muddied…’
‘the people muddied,/ Thick and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers/ For good Polonius’ death’ - Claudius (monologue to G)
- the public are confused and suspicious
‘and we have done but…’
‘and we have done but greenly/ In hugger-mugger to inter him’ - Claudius (monologue to G)
- behaved like amateurs in burying him so quick
