Hamlet Assignment #4

Yesterday morning I was reading the news when I came across an intriguing article, by Peter J. Seng, that discusses the possible meaning of Ophelia’s words that she sang and how they could possibly connect to her deranged mind. It could easily be inferred that Ophelia’s songs are not sung because she has a memory to the songs but it so happens that Ophelia is trying to carry messages with hidden meanings with these songs. I believe Seng is correct in that he states that Ophelia’s songs allude to past conversations and current resolutions. Given this I believe that Ophelia’s songs are connected to the actions performed of Prince Hamlet and Laertes.

In Seng’s criticism, When Ophelia sings about her love life and how that one true love is song, Seng claims that Ophelia is referring to Gertrude who used to be the Wife of King Hamlet. “He is dead and gone,/at his heels a stone.” (4.5.25-28). With these words, Ophelia is referring to pointing to Gertrude and is disgusted with her for forgetting about her Husband whom once was her true love before his death. This is evident when Seng states that “negative chives foe Gertrude’s faults for her inadequate mourning of King Hamlet and perhaps for worse offenses as well” (Seng 218). This is inferring that Ophelia goes insane as she sings and that she is afraid to clarify to the King. Gertrude cuts off Ophelia during song with a simple “Nay” (4.5.29).

It wasn’t very hard for me to believe that Ophelia was insane when I first came across the news. From what I’ve seen, any woman who is willing to let a man in and control the better parts of their life will end up that way. I’ve seen it happen with my own eyes many times. Though, what is still hard for me to wrap my mind around is how Polonius and Laertes could have played a role in the breaking of her sanity. In Seng’s criticism, we says that both of these men tried their best to talk Ophelia out of falling in love and trusting Hamlet with her heart. That it would be a mistake because we would never love her the way she loved him and that Hamlet would only use her. In a song, Ophelia sings “Then up he rose, and donned his clothes, and dumped the chamber door” (4.5.36-37).

With these lines she is talking about Hamlet and how because she had listened to and valued what Polonius and Laertes had said to her, Hamlet had left her. Ophelia’s love for all three people and her desire to please each of then leaves her in a battle with herself. Because of Ophelia’s weak and dependent state, she goes insane. Seng suggests that the “distorted vision” of a reality that Polonius and Laertes had imposed on Ophelia is what indeed triggered her “tragedy” (Seng 222).

Ophelia also sings another song represents the anguish regarding the death of her father and also as a warning for Laertes to stay clear of Prince Hamlet. She says that Laertes “fails to recall that it was just such false lovers that he had once warned against” (Seng 223). Laertes takes is persistent with his revenge and tries so hard that he eventually drives himself insane as well. He states that “thought and affliction, passion, hell itself, she turns to favor and to prettiness” (4.5.158-159). Seng reveals that these ballads appear to others as being unimportant and as just another love song sung by an unstable young girl. But there is more to them than the average person can see. There are meanings and emotions she tries to revel to people by singing her songs. People just do not look close enough.