Custom Written Essays Contrasting Gertrude and Ophelia...

Contrasting the Ladies in Hamlet How can anyone view or read the Shakespearean tragedy of Hamlet without observing an obvious differentiation between the characters of the two female characters? And yet, not all critics agree on even the most salient features of this contrast. Quite opposite the criminality of the king’s wife is the innocence of Ophelia – this view is generally expressed among Shakespearean critics. Jessie F. O’Donnell expresses the total innocence of the hero’s girlfriend in â€Å"Ophelia,† originally appearing in The American Shakespeare Magazine: O broken lily! how shall one rightly treat of her loveliness, her gentleness and the awful pathos of her fate? Who shall dare to hint that she was†¦show more content†¦Yet no one who reads the first soliloquy in the Second Quarto text, with its illuminating dramatic punctuation, can doubt for one moment that Shakespeare wished here to make full dramatic capital out of Gertrude’s infringement of ecclesiastical law [. . .] . (39) In the Introduction to Twentieth Century Interpretations of Hamlet, David Bevington analyzes the dissimilarity: â€Å"Characters also serve as foils to one another as well as to Hamlet. Gertrude wishfully sees in Ophelia the blushing bride of Hamlet, innocently free from the compromises and surrenders which Gertrude has never mastered the strength to escape† (9). Ophelia is so despondent at the death of Polonius and the alienation of Hamlet that she slips into madness – something that would never happen to Gertrude at the loss of a man. The queen has difficulty empathizing with the masculine point of view, even with that of her own son. She sees him attending the courtly social gathering in black, and refuses to tolerate it: Dear Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off, And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. Do not for ever with thy vailed lids Seek for thy noble father in the dust. (1.2) Likewise she expresses her wishes that the prince â€Å"go not to Wittenberg.† Later, when the hero’s supposed â€Å"madness† is the big concern, Gertrude analyzes her son’s condition: â€Å"IShow MoreRelated Shakespeares Hamlet - The Character of Ophelia Essay3341 Words   |  14 PagesHamlet: The Character of Ophelia  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚        Ã‚   Concerning the Ophelia of Shakespeare’s tragic drama Hamlet, is she an innocent type or not? Is she a victim or not? This essay will explore these and other questions related to this character.    Rebecca West in â€Å"A Court and World Infected by the Disease of Corruption† viciously, and perhaps unfoundedly, attacks the virginity of Ophelia:    There is no more bizarre aspect of the misreading of Hamlet’s character than the assumptionRead MoreEssay on Interpreting Hamlet’s Ophelia3518 Words   |  15 PagesHamlet’s Ophelia Was Ophelia in love with Hamlet, or did she have more feeling for her father than for her boyfriend? In Shakespeare’s Hamlet was Ophelia’s madness contributed to by the prince’s rejection of her? The answers to these and other questions about this tragic figure will be given. Rebecca West in â€Å"A Court and World Infected by the Disease of Corruption† argues that Ophelia has no love for Hamlet, but only for her father: For the myth which has been built round Hamlet is never