Revision:Hamlet - Gertrude and Ophelia Notes
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Gertrude
Is sometimes subservient
- “O Gertrude, come away”
- “Come Gertrude”
- “O come away.” – Claudius (repetition, trying to enforce his power, imperatives)
- “Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son”
Sometimes stands up for herself
- “Let’s follow Gertrude.”
- “Therefore let’s follow” – Claudius – (In Branagh version she refuses.)
- “Gertrude do not drink”
- “I will, my lord.”
- “The drink, the drink! I am poisoned.”
Loves her son?
- “I doubt it is no other but the main, his father’s death and our o’erhasty marriage.”
- “let not thy mother lose her prayers Hamlet”
Does not know much about Hamlet
- “Do not for ever with thy veiled lids seek for thy noble father in the dust.”
- “why seems it so particular with thee?”
Hamlet listens to her over Claudius
- “I shall in all my best obey you madam.”
She is disrespected
- “A beast that wants discourse of reason would have mourned longer”
- “O most wicked speed, to post with such dexterity to incestuous sheets.” (Sibilance creates a venomous tone)
- “My most seeming-virtuous Queen” – Ghost
- “Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.” “Mother, you have my father much offended.” (Hamlet twists the words of his mother to create a similar and yet accusatory point)
- “O Hamlet thou hast cleft my heart in twain”
- “Get you to my lady’s chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come.” – Hamlet (theme of make-up and women)
- “I will speak daggers to her, but use none” (emphasis on words and not actions)
Ophelia
Does not know her own mind
- “No more but so?”
- “I do not know my lord what I should think”
- “I shall obey my lord”
- “No my lord” “ay my lord” “I think nothing my lord” “ay my lord”… (Simplistic and subservient, epistrophe (my lord) illustrates the lack of her own mind)
Stands up for herself
- “…recks not his own rede”
- “My lord, I have remembrances of yours that I have longed long to re-deliver”
Insane
- “Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny.” (nonsense words and random repetition reinforces madness)
- “They say the owl was a baker’s daughter.”
Thread of reason
- “There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance.”
- “There is pansies, that’s for thoughts” (anaphoric structure like previous quotation)
- “A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.”
- “I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died.”
Loved
- “Pretty Ophelia” – Claudius (trying to appease and calm her)
- I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet’s wife.”
- “I loved Ophelia, forty thousand brothers could not, with all their quantity of love, make up my sum” – Hamlet (hyperbolic language)
Disrespected
- “Are you honest?” “Are you fair?” – Hamlet
- “I was the more deceived”
- “Get thee to a nunnery” – Hamlet (imperative, misogynistic)
- “Follow her close, give her good watch I pray you”
- “Lady, shall I lie in your lap?”
- “Do you think I meant country matters?”
- “It would cost you a groaning to take off mine edge.” (All sexual puns and innuendos – linked to Hamlets use of words. Also his relationship with Ophelia)
Question
“Everything that happens in the play is because of the women involved.”
“The women in this play are pointless and insignificant.”
They are Important
- Was the quick marriage Gertrude’s idea? What was her motive?
- Hamlet seems more concerned with the incestuous actions of his mother than the murder of his father – priorities seem warped.
- Hamlet gives into his mother’s request to stay in Denmark - “I shall in all my best obey you madam.”
- The ghost is repulsed by Gertrude’s actions – increasing his motives for revenge on Claudius
- Hamlet is motivated by his betrayal by women -"God has given you one face and you make yourselves another" and "wise men know well what fools you make of them"
- Ophelia is important in the spying plot with Polonius and Claudius
- The women are the first to note Claudius’ actions after the play – “The King rises.” “How fares my lord?”
- Gertrude has a possibility of guilt in her previous husbands murder – but it is ambiguous whether she knew or not
- Motive for murder by Claudius – possibly to marry Gertrude
- Polonius dies in the spying episode involving Gertrude – and some say his death caused the deaths of the others.
- Hamlet is driven by his hatred of incest and his mothers sexuality when he finally kills Claudius – “Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane…Follow my mother.”
- The women characters bring the downfall of men – Gertrude brings the death of Claudius (incest) and Ophelia the death of Laertes and possibly Hamlet?
- Death of Ophelia adds to the motives of Laertes towards Hamlet
- The female deaths are important in bringing about other events
The are Pointless/ less important than other things
- Polonius forbids Ophelia from seeing Hamlet – she is pointless as she takes the advice of others
- Ophelia and Gerturde are both subservient and follow either Claudius or Polonius/Laertes
- Ophelia and Gertrude do not know their own minds and often ask questions or admit they do not know - “I do not know my lord what I should think”
Comments
Originally posted by BeckySparrow on TSR Forums.
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