Polonius appears convinced that Hamlet is mad, driven insane by his love for Ophelia. His general behavior around the court and his treatment of Ophelia appear to suggest so. But Claudius is far from convinced. He senses that Hamlet is feigning madness for some ulterior motive. But in any case, if Hamlet really is mad, Claudius wants to make sure what the cause of it is. He knows that Hamlet resents him for marrying his mother, but if he's mad because of Claudius, then that makes him a potential danger. For her part, Gertrude believes that Hamlet is mad because of his father's death and her subsequent remarriage. If this is the case, then Claudius is potentially in deep trouble and so needs to make a move.
Unfortunately for Claudius, the contrived scene he arranges with Polonius between Hamlet and Ophelia proves inconclusive, to say the least. Hamlet knows he's being watched, so as well as lashing out at Ophelia ("Get thee to a nunnery!") he also rails against Claudius, but without mentioning him by name:
"I say, we will have no more marriages. Those that are married already, all but one, shall live." (Act III Scene I).
Claudius's plan has backfired spectacularly and he now finds himself in a worse position than before. There's nothing for it. He's going to settle accounts with Hamlet once and for all by sending him off to England, where he intends for him to be assassinated.
Thursday, August 7, 2014
How do Claudius and Gertrude react to Polonius's theory regarding Hamlet and Ophelia?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Why is the fact that the Americans are helping the Russians important?
In the late author Tom Clancy’s first novel, The Hunt for Red October, the assistance rendered to the Russians by the United States is impor...
-
There are a plethora of rules that Jonas and the other citizens must follow. Again, page numbers will vary given the edition of the book tha...
-
The poem contrasts the nighttime, imaginative world of a child with his daytime, prosaic world. In the first stanza, the child, on going to ...
-
The given two points of the exponential function are (2,24) and (3,144). To determine the exponential function y=ab^x plug-in the given x an...
-
The play Duchess of Malfi is named after the character and real life historical tragic figure of Duchess of Malfi who was the regent of the ...
-
The only example of simile in "The Lottery"—and a particularly weak one at that—is when Mrs. Hutchinson taps Mrs. Delacroix on the...
-
Hello! This expression is already a sum of two numbers, sin(32) and sin(54). Probably you want or express it as a product, or as an expressi...
-
Macbeth is reflecting on the Weird Sisters' prophecy and its astonishing accuracy. The witches were totally correct in predicting that M...
No comments:
Post a Comment