thinking about hamlet's relationship with love
he grows up and his parents are married — but clearly his mother didn't love his father enough because she moves on from that love so quickly.
whatever love the brothers had for one another is down the drain in seconds. there's not much to it, and it's over before we can really get any insight to their dynamic.
when hamlet sees the ghost of his father, it tries to guilt trip him with love as a tool. if thou didst ever thy dear father love, — and hamlet interrupts this with a cry — revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.
love has now in a way become associated with the killing, along with the wedding being so quick to succeed the funeral.
hamlet does not love his uncle. his uncle does not love him. but they must because they are family, because he is hamlet's mother's husband and because his mother loves claudius
ophelia and polonius and laertes all love each other as a family. they are clearly close and care deeply for one another, and it hits hard when any one of them is suddenly absent; permanently, this time around
hamlet loves laertes in the way that one must love one's partner's sibling, and laertes loves hamlet in the way one must love one's sibling's partner. once she is not holding them together, the love crumbles, and that switch is flipped to kill.
hamlet loves ophelia the only way he knows how to. he abuses her and he shoves her aside in favour of his own personal journey, and in the end, it results in her death.
ophelia loves hamlet the only way she knows how to. she cares for him and truly, deeply loves him, and she's hurt when he's unreasonable, reasonably.
hamlet loves horatio. he trusts horatio and he knows him, and horatio knows hamlet. horatio feels like the only one in this whole ordeal who's actually on hamlet's side and actively makes an attempt to understand him. he is hamlet's safe place.
