Monday, February 25, 2008
Hamlet Act IV: Ophelia, flowers, and madness
What's going on in Ophelia's scene, as she sings and plucks/mentions flowers? What might flowers symbolize (recall previous mentions of flowers, of gardens, weeds, etc... in the play), and how do they add drama to the scene? How might this scene be a difficult one for an actress to perform?
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This scene displayed nothing but sadness, anger and mourning coming from Ophelia. I believe she acts like this as a result of the combination of her father’s death and Hamlet’s departure. The flowers that she is tearing up represent the love that her and Hamlet shared; their destruction portrays the idea of that love being broken apart when he leaves. On top of this, her father, Polonius, has just died. These two events added up to cause Ophelia to become mad, thus walking around singing depressing melodies and ripping up flowers. During her rampage, she might be thinking about whether Hamlet will return to her, but the act of ripping up flowers represents that the love is over, reflecting the fact that she thinks he will never come back. This scene is just one of the many scene’s that reflects anger, madness, sadness and so on.
Adorned with flowers and singing strange songs, she seems to have gone insane. Horatio says that her daughter be pitied because it is her grief that is causing her to act in a strange way. It was probably from her father's death. These flowers symbolize the death of her father because flowers are usually associated with death. In addition, these strange songs are probably her talking to herself in a unique way. Also, when she walks in, she says, "They say the owl was a baker’s daughter” (IV.v.42)" and she continues to rave about these nonsense things.
What has happened to the always stable Ophelia? In act 4 scene 5, Ophelia went completely mad, singing strange songs of death while carrying an array of flowers. But what does all that mean? I believe that this was a way for Ophelia to relieve her grief. Though highly unusual, we all have different ways to showour grief. Going into more detail, I believe that the flowers represent death. I believe this isso becuase as flower is no different than a person, when relating to death, because they both die.
Throughout the play thus far Opelia has played the calm and collective lover of Hamlet. Now that Hamlet has disapeared she had gone completely insane. She has been put into a straight jacket to control her from going even further in her insanity and hurting herself. It's a compiling of the little things finally push her over the edge. Especially the fact that now Hamlet has gone off to England without her knowing. The songs she sings are ones of death and the flowers she holds represent life.
Ophelia has gone completely mad. We see a completely new side of her. Her different tones and her going back and forth from screaming to whispering to singing, shows her madness. I think most of this is because of how much she loves and misses Hamlet. But there is some grief for her father as well. When she has the flowers and is talking to Laertes, she says "There's a daisy. I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died." (pg. 217) It seems as if the flowers are holding more of the pain for her fathers death and the pain for Hamlets departure is reflected in Ophelia's madness. She offers the flowers to her brother almost to say "grieve with me".
Ophelia, comes into the scene with a bang and is rambling on and expressing her thoughts in song. She is going crazy inside because there are so many things that have just gone wrong in her life. Her father has been killed, he may have been killed by her former lover, and then her former lover (a.k.a Hamlet) is sent into exile all the way in England. She is completely devestated and has gone completely mad. When reading and watching the scene makes me feel uncomfortable personally. As the scene continues you symapthize with her and are overwhelmed with her grief. When she begins her song/ monologue she refers to flowers and weeds. These metaphors are used in place of her former relations with Hamlet. While ripping up the flowers she is thinking back to a certain "special" time with Hamlet and how its gone and will never return to her.
Ophelia has gone crazy. The scene overall had a very sad and angry tone possibly due to the fact that her father has just died and hamlet left. From the scene it is obvious that Ophelia is no longer stable because she is singing songs about death and holding flowers. When Ophelia breaks off the flowers, she could be expressing the idea that when hamlet leaves their love will be broken. She is acting this way in the scene because she is afraid Hamlet will never come back. The flowers could also represent the death of her father which seemed to be the original cause of her mourning. Ophelia is expressing her grief over to different things going on in her life so it makes her even more dramatic.
Ophelia has gone crazy. The scene overall had a very sad and angry tone possibly due to the fact that her father has just died and hamlet left. From the scene it is obvious that Ophelia is no longer stable because she is singing songs about death and holding flowers. When Ophelia breaks off the flowers, she could be expressing the idea that when hamlet leaves their love will be broken. She is acting this way in the scene because she is afraid Hamlet will never come back. The flowers could also represent the death of her father which seemed to be the original cause of her mourning. Ophelia is expressing her grief over to different things going on in her life so it makes her even more dramatic.
Ophelia has gone mad. She sings about love to Gertrude and Claudius, "Tomorrow is Saint Valentine's day, All in the morning bedtime, And I a maid at your window, To be your Valentine" (209, lines 53-56) She has gone crazy partly because Hamlet is gone. She speaks about her father a lot, but she also is (or was) in love with Hamlet. Then she talks about flowers, maybe she's talking about having her flowers taken away, like losing her verginity to Hamlet, "Before you tumbled me, You promised me to wed." (pg 209, lines 67-68). Also, Shakespeare has been talking about flowers and gardens a lot, and that relates to the Garden of Eden. Ophilia can be talking about that, because bad things start to happen in the garden once Eve bit the apple, and broke the rules. Ophilia broke the social rules by losing her verginity to Hamlet before they were married. Hell has come to the garend of Eden.
The flowers symbolized continuity, and the cycle of life. They represented how Ophelia is like any other living thing, and part of the cycle of life. She has blossomed and is now wilting; being drowned by the weight of her gown. She is just arriving at the last part of the cycle--death. It is a very natural thing-- she is not special, yet possesses much beauty as do flowers. The comparison of Ophelia and flowers, or her in a garden like setting adds drama because of their life cycle. The cycle of plants is so basic to us, but when we set it next to that of a human’s it creates drama. Placing something so “complicated” next to something so simple like a plant makes us realize that we really don’t differ so much, and might not be as complicated as we perceive ourselves to be. Creating a garden and a setting full of flowers could make the scene difficult for an actress to perform. They need to create the impression that they are similar to a plant, they need to convince the audience of that. We can imagine the cycle, and connections when reading, but in a play or performance a large burden is placed on an actress and director to convince us--we aren’t imagining it, we need to see it and derive it from their performance.
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