Act V, Scene i
“‘Swounds, show me what thou'lt do./Woo’t weep, woo’t fight, woo’t fast, woo’t tear thyself,/Woo’t drink up eisel, eat a crocodile?/I’ll do ’t. Dost thou come here to whine,/To outface me with leaping in her grave?/Be buried quick with her, and so will I.”
-Hamlet, Act V, Scene i
This quote is quite debatable. Did Hamlet really love Ophelia or is he saying this to surpass Laertes’ love for her? Who knows. This quote is from his argument with Laertes when Hamlet asks him what he’d do to show his love for Ophelia. Personally, I’m torn in this debate. Hamlet was obviously struck by grief when he realizes that the grave the two clowns were digging was for Ophelia.He also says that he was willing to be buried alive with her and he says, “I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers/Could not, with all their quantity of love,/Make up my sum.” That quote means that even if forty thousand men loved Ophelia, their collective love for her wouldn’t amount to his love for her. Hamlet also had a lot going on and he might not have been able to express his love for Ophelia to the greatest extent when she was still alive. On the other hand, this could also be some sort of “manly competition” over who loved her more. In Scene ii, Hamlet confesses to Horatio that he was probably being impulsive saying all those things about his love for Ophelia. Laertes and Hamlet also aren’t very fond of each other and can both of them can be a little childish at times, so who’s to say that they were just trying to one-up each other?
I guess this also depends on other interactions Hamlet had with Ophelia. When she confronted him in Act III, Scene i, he did tell her that he loved her at one point, but he also said he never loved her at all. He also told her to go to a nunnery. If you read that part of the scene without dwelling on it very long, we would see that he doesn’t love her and wants her to go so she doesn’t end up being a breeder of sinners. It’s pretty harsh, but if you really think about it, perhaps Hamlet was sending her away for her own benefit. We were fully aware that Hamlet was feigning his madness and he knew that a lot of stuff would be going on, but maybe he wasn’t trying to help her. Perhaps Ophelia was pregnant. In Act IV, Scene v, Ophelia says, or sings, “By Gis and by Saint Charity,/Alack, and fie for shame!/Young men will do’t, if they come to’t,/By Cock, they are to blame./Quoth she, ‘Before you tumbled me,/You promised me to wed.’/He answers:/’So would I ha’ done, by yonder sun,/An thou hadst not come to my bed.” This basically means that they did the “frick-frack,” she got rejected, and she’s pregnant.
The whole question itself is like a Tootsie Pop commercial. Did Hamlet really love Ophelia? The world may never know. Wrapping my brain around this question was probably one of the hardest controversies I had to side on, but in the end, I’m still undecided.
Discuss an allusion and analyze why you think Shakespeare chooses to use it where he does.
In Act V, Scene i, Hamlet is coming to terms with the fact that death is a part of life and alludes to Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great. I think Shakespeare alluded to the because they help Hamlet understand that death is a part of life and there’s a few things that are a bit familiar about their lives.
By alluding to both Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great, Hamlet realizes that whoever you are in the living world you will eventually turn to dust. On page 106, Hamlet says, “Alexander died,/Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth to dust.../Imperious Caesar, dead and turn’d to clay.” This quote shows how someone who conquered most of the known world and a powerful ruler of a vast, cultured civilization turned to dust even though they were exceptional leaders. This realization for Hamlet was also referenced in Act IV, Scene iii when the King asked Hamlet where he put Polonius’ body by saying that eventually everyone will become a feast for the worms.
Another reason why he alluded to Caesar and Alexander was because both of their fathers were killed and they were forced into their positions at a young age. Caesar was sixteen and Alexander was thirteen when they were taking on their new roles. Although Hamlet may have been older than them by five or more years when his father died, it still caught him off guard and he probably had a lot of new responsibilities.
By referencing Caesar, we’re able to see the betrayal that kind of echoes Hamlet’s situation throughout this whole play. Julius Caesar was killed by his friend, Brutus. This betrayal reflects how Hamlet was betrayed by Gertrude, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern, Ophelia, and even the whole world betraying what he believed in.It can also reflect how Old Hamlet was betrayed by his own brother.
Wild Card: What role do the two clowns (gravediggers) play in this scene? Why are they important?
Act V begins with two gravediggers who are digging Ophelia’s grave. Their presence in this scene provide comic relief, to juxtapose death and comedy, and to state the public opinion regarding Ophelia’s death and Hamlet’s madness.
Comic relief is the use of comedy or humor to relieve the audience of the intensity that has built up in the preceding scenes. In Shakespeare’s works, he usually uses clowns, gravediggers, and country bumpkins for the sole purpose of comic relief. The term “clown” doesn’t mean a jester in this context. It refers more to the common people who aren’t of noble blood. Their comical speech eases the mood of the play and kind of serves as a “break.” One example is when the first gravedigger, who is smarter compared to the other, says, “What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the/shipwright, or the carpenter?” When the second is unable to figure out the riddle, the first says that it’s a gravedigger because the “houses” that they build will “last ‘till doomsday.”
The clowns also juxtapose death and comedy by making them perceive death as something that isn’t that serious. While the first gravedigger is making Ophelia’s grave, he sings. Hamlet is a bit confused as to why he’d be singing while he’s digging a grave for someone. Horatio replies by saying that he’s probably dug so many graves that he’s used to it at this point. To the gravedigger, death isn’t such a big deal that they’re able to do their jobs without feeling frightened or grief. This lets the audience see that all of our deaths will be the same, no matter how great we are while we’re alive. On the other hand, Hamlet, Laertes, and Gertrude suffer because of Ophelia’s death. Hamlet lost his love, Laertes lost his sister, and Gertrude lost who she thought would be her future daughter-in-law. With their reactions to death, we’re able to see how much a person can be to another even to the point where Laertes and Hamlet were willing to be buried alive to be with her.
Lastly, we’re able to see what the common people think is going on. The two gravediggers start the scene by talking about Ophelia’s death. They seem to think that Ophelia committed suicide, contradicting Gertrude’s account of her death. Gertrude implies that it was an accident when she says, “There, on the pendant boughs her crownet weeds/Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;/When down her weedy trophies and herself/Fell in the weeping brook.” This shows that a branch had a hold on Ophelia, but snapped causing her to fall and drown. She then goes on saying, “Her clothes spread wide,/And mermaid-like awhile they bore her up;/Which time she chanted snatches of old lauds,/As one incapable of her own distress,/Or like a creature native and indued/Unto that element.” This makes us think that she probably drowned because she wasn’t aware of the imminent danger she was going to be in due to her madness and she was preoccupied with her singing. Another could be that she thought she was one with the water, like she was meant to be with it. Although there’s the theory that she accidentally killed herself, there’s still the thought that perhaps she really did commit suicide. In the same explanation provided by Gertrude, she compares Ophelia’s clothing to be “mermaid-like.” Shakespeare probably alluded to mermaids because in some cultures, it is believed that mermaids are women or girls who committed suicide by drowning themselves. Going back to the clowns, the first clown says that if the water comes to man, he’s not responsible for losing his life, but if the man goes to water and drowns himself, it’s suicide. Then the first clown says that the coroner deems Ophelia’s death to be an accident, but the second clown says that her having a high status is what allowed her to have a Christian burial. He says, “If this had not been a gentle-/woman, she should have been buried out o’ Christian/burial.” In a nutshell, this means that if the same thing happened to a commoner, they wouldn’t be given a Christian burial. When Hamlet and Horatio walk to the grave that the first gravedigger is making, he’s unable to recognize Hamlet as the prince of Denmark. They speak about how Hamlet was sent to England. Hamlet questions the gravedigger as to why he thinks he was sent to England and the gravedigger says it was because he was mad and needed to clear his mind.
Provide and discuss an example of one or more of Aristotle's Principles of the Tragic Hero.
Three of Aristotle’s Principles of a Tragic Hero are Nemesis, Peripeteia, and Hubris. All three of these are reflected amongst Hamlet, Laertes, the King, and the Queen in this scene.
Nemesis is the inescapable agent of someone’s or something’s downfall. I thought that all of them were faced with Nemesis because Hamlet and Gertrude would die at the hands of Laertes and Claudius, but Claudius and Laertes die at the hands of Hamlet. At the end of Scene i, Claudius tells Laertes to be patient so they can execute their plan. Due to their evident ability to act in revenge, there wasn’t really any way for Hamlet and Gertrude to escape their deaths. Hamlet’s newfound ability to act was the inescapable agent for Laertes’ and Claudius’ deaths because now that he was only going to think of bloody thoughts, he was willing to do what it takes to kill Claudius. The only thing is that Laertes was there and was another casualty in Hamlet’s overall plan of revenge.
Peripeteia is the sudden reversal of fortune or change in circumstances. I think that the fates of everyone was drastically changed by Claudius’ scheme to kill Hamlet is what turned everyone’s fate to their deaths. The plan itself was open to a few flaws, like the possibility that the whole royal family would be poisoned (nice going, Claudius). Also the fact that Laertes and Hamlet jumping into Ophelia’s grave to be with her could have added to their deaths because they said they’d do anything to be with Ophelia in her death and what happens in the last scene? They both die and are able to be with Ophelia… in Heaven.
Hubris is excessive pride or self-confidence. I think Hamlet, Claudius, and Laertes exemplified this principle in this scene because Claudius was so sure that his plan would be used to kill Hamlet would work that he wanted to “put the matter to present push.” Hamlet and Laertes exhibited hubris when they were fighting over who loved Ophelia the most. As I said above, their whole argument could have been a manly competition to prove who was better than the other. Gertrude, on the other hand, demonstrated hubris throughout most of this play. At the beginning of the play, one could infer that Gertrude married Claudius to keep her status as queen. A more recent example is when Gertrude didn’t wish to speak with Ophelia because she’s gone mad, but did it anyways because Horatio told her that Ophelia should be pitied rather than ignored.