Fan Forum - View Single Post - Hamlet Appreciation Thread#1: Because to be, or not to be, that is the question...

*PassionateJ* · 04-02-2009, 07:15 AM

Hamlet Appreciation Thread# 1

Synopsis:

Hamlet, son of the king of Denmark, is summoned home for his father's funeral and his mother's wedding to his uncle. In a supernatural episode, he discovers that his uncle, whom he hates anyway, murdered his father. In an incredibly convoluted plot--the most complicated and most interesting in all literature--he manages to (impossible to put this in exact order) feign (or perhaps not to feign) madness, murder the "prime minister," love and then unlove an innocent whom he drives to madness, plot and then unplot against the uncle, direct a play within a play, successfully conspire against the lives of two well-meaning friends, and finally take his revenge on the uncle, but only at the cost of almost every life on stage, including his own and his mother's.

The character of Ophelia

Ophelia is the daughter of Polonius, Lord Chamberlain of Denmark, in the play "Hamlet". She is in love with Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, and is also the sister of Laertes, Polonus's son. Both Laertes and Polonius believe that Hamlet's intentions toward Ophelia are dishonorable, but Hamlet is deeply in love with Ophelia, and hurt when she apparently rejects him on the orders of Polonius. The ghost of Hamlet's father, the former King of Denmark, appears and tells Hamlet that Claudius, the King's brother, has murdered his (Hamlet's) father, the King of Denmark, in order to usurp the throne and marry Hamlet's mother, Queen Gertrude. The ghost asks Hamlet to avenge the murder. Polonius hides behind a curtain and eavesdrops on Hamlet while he is having a discussion with his mother, and is unintentionally killed by Hamlet (who mistakes the eavesdropper for Claudius). Ophelia goes insane when she hears of this, and eventually drowns herself. Whether or not her death is an intentional suicide is never clearly stated, but now her brother Laertes is out for revenge.

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Clips:

YouTube - Hamlet Act IV Scene V (Ophelia's Madness)
YouTube - Ophelia's Insane Exchange
YouTube - Ophelia's Immortal