Example Hamlet Essay paragraphs

Ophelia sings about someone who has lost their virginity and her Father’s death, (‘Quoth she, before you tumbled me you promised me to wed’ ‘He is dead and gone lady.’) This shows that she is still controlled by her former lover and her father. She is unable to move on. Shakespeare uses songs to allow Ophelia even in her manic confusion to express something of her distress. Apart from the song lyrics, Ophelia is unable to express herself, all that she says makes no sense. This is such a sharp contrast from the articulate, beautiful Ophelia at the beginning of the play when she had her whole life still before her. In Act 5, Scene 2, we see a distorted, broken version of Ophelia who has been so deeply damaged by all her experiences at the hands of men that she will never recover. In the David Tennant production, the director used a wide pane of broken glass to symbolise how broken Ophelia’s mind and life is. This is an effective way of emphasising how deceptive appearances can be, as Ophelia’s life is suddenly wrecked by circumstances beyond her control.

Ophelia is devastated by Hamlet’s abrupt and cruel behaviour in Act 3, Scene 1. We see this particularly in the moment when Hamlet refuses to accept the gifts she returns to him, saying ‘I never gave you aught’. This scene is rendered even more complex and ambiguous by the fact that Hamlet and Ophelia are being watched throughout by Polonius and Claudius and in fact the whole meeting has been arranged by them for this purpose. This means that we can never whether Hamlet is being sincere or merely playing a part for the benefit of Polonius and Claudius. Ophelia is left helpless in this situation, essentially the pawn of everyone else around her. Her pain and distress is evident, ‘You know right well you did, ’ ‘Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.’ This is an effective way of portraying loss as Shakespeare repeatedly makes us doubt whether we can trust what people say and  whether Hamlet has been genuinely driven mad or not. As an audience we are in the same position as Ophelia – bewildered and confused. In the David Tennant production this sense of doubt was emphasised by the use of edgy music.

This is a similar experience to that of the speaker in Cousin Kate, who also has to deal with a sudden change in her lover’s behaviour towards her, ‘He wore me like a silken knot/He changed me like a glove’. In contrast to Ophelia however, the speaker is able to rise above her experiences and move on from her pain, maturing as a result. ​This means that our response as readers to Cousin Kate is entirely different to our response to Hamlet - the speaker in Cousin Kate manages to turn the pain of being spurned and tossed aside by the Lord into a positive experience whereas Ophelia's life is completely destroyed by her experience. In this way, Cousin Kate seems to be written from a much more modern and feminist perspective, showing how women can act to determine their own fates, rather than having them decided for them by the men in their lives.