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Love In Hamlet And Ophelia

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Love is different for each and every individual. It is so powerful that people cry, suffer pain, or even risk their lives to save it. But there are other kinds of love: elusive love, tortured love, or even the love that you feel for someone but cannot embrace it for fear of other, larger events. It is that kind of love that seems to be the most prevalent in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, especially when it comes to Hamlet’s relationship with Ophelia, the daughter of King Claudius’s advisor, the ever forgetful and meddling Polonius. The love that Hamlet claimed he had for Ophelia was not only fabricated, but unhealthy, which untimely led to her death. After a long meditation on the nature of being and death, Hamlet catches sight of Ophelia. As she attempts to return some of the remembrances that Hamlet gave when courting her, Hamlet caustically questions Ophelia’s honesty. He denies ever having given Ophelia anything and continues to erratically claim that he loved her once before declaring that he never loved her at all. The problem here is that no one knows the exact intent of Hamlet as he claims to love Ophelia amidst a number of happenings that questions how genuine his love towards Ophelia. Not only does he doubt her honesty because he knew about her plan with Polonius and Claudius to eavesdrop on him, he is unsure of her purity and her love for him and he tells her, “get thee to a nunnery” rather than give birth to sinners ( ). Increasingly agitated, Hamlet condemns marriage itself, saying that no more marriages should be allowed, before exiting the room and leaving Ophelia in shambles. Looking deeper into the behavior that Hamlet demonstrates in this scene, there is completely no love that he shares with Ophelia. In a way, Hamlet seems convinced that Ophelia is the love of her life, but yet he has the behavior of insulting her and not giving her the priority that she needs. His character portrays a man who cannot be connected to his self and this leads him to a number of problems as regards the way he treats Ophelia. It is not just the feelings that Hamlet has towards Ophelia that describes his love for her but his actions say a lot on the feeling that is in the inside. Reaching to an extent that he can

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