Gertrude and Ophelia Ophelia Ophelia mostly silent and

Gertrude and Ophelia

Ophelia • Ophelia mostly silent and submissive to male characters in Acts I – III • Role mainly passive until madness in Act IV and Act V Scene 1 which creates pathos. – Pathos = emotional appeal to audience, manipulate audience’s feelings.

Ophelia • Hamlet most passionately expresses his love for her when she is in the grave.

Ophelia • Scene with Laertes and Polonius - 40 lines of lecturing to 7 lines reply. • ‘I do not know my lord what I should think’ (I. 3. 104)

Ophelia • Duplicitous Ophelia? • Innocent victim of society at Elsinore?

Gertrude • Gertrude’s adultery and incest focus of Hamlet’s anger. • Not presented as equal to the powerful feelings she arouses. • Shakespeare’s ‘horror of sexual promiscuity’ – sense of comeuppance for characters who divert from lives of chastity and faithfulness within marriage.

Gertrude • Difference before/after closet scene – loyalty shifts from Claudius to Hamlet. Defiance in final scene as she drinks from the poisoned cup. • Ghost: ‘step between her and her fighting soul’ (III. 4. 113)

Gertrude • ‘O my dear Hamlet-/The drink, the drink – I am poisoned’ (V. 2. 289 -90) • Killing Claudius now - avenging his mother’s death?

‘Silencing’ of female characters? • Similarity between the nunnery episode and the closet scene. – Closet scene = 80% lines are Hamlet’s. – Nunnery scene = 2/3 of lines are Hamlet’s

Question of length? • Not enough time to explore Ophelia and Gertrude? • Is Claudius an underdeveloped character too?

Task: Character Focus • Ophelia – Act III Scene 1 • Gertrude – Act III Scene 4 Pick out key quotations and explain how they give us an insight in to character and relationship to Hamlet.