Um...gee, I have to think back a couple of years here. But I did Hamlet as univerity honours level, and from memory it was arguable either way whether Hamlet is or isn't really insane, although majority opinion was that it was all an act.
Still, the guy is obsessed with vengeance of ever-more involved conspiracy theories and is taking advice from the 'ghost' of his dead father (real, or a hallucination?). Those, plus his words to Ophelia, indicate that even if he was 'faking' most of the insanity, he was still a couple of cans short of a six-pack.
On Ophelia, and Hamlet's treatment of her, I think it's influenced at least partially by Hamlet's belief that he has been betrayed, likely as a result of (what he sees as) the mental weakness of women. In addition to that, it seems to me that Hamlet has a very strong dislike for - even disgust at - the concept of female sexuality, and that taints his relationships with both Ophelia and his mother. I think he's genuinely disgusted with the both of them for having any desires at all, and that's embodied in his nasty words to Ophelia, and to his request that his mother stop sleeping with his uncle (for forbid she have any lustful feelings). Still, it's difficult to separate the character of Hamlet from the age in which Shakespeare was writing, so it's debatable whether the entire arc was some attempt to put the hypocrisy of the men in the play on display, or whether it was just a reflection of Elizabethan attitudes generally…
Okay, I'm bluffing now because I seriously can't remember all that much of the play. Geez, it was only a couple of years ago...
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-03-16 01:38 am (UTC)Still, the guy is obsessed with vengeance of ever-more involved conspiracy theories and is taking advice from the 'ghost' of his dead father (real, or a hallucination?). Those, plus his words to Ophelia, indicate that even if he was 'faking' most of the insanity, he was still a couple of cans short of a six-pack.
On Ophelia, and Hamlet's treatment of her, I think it's influenced at least partially by Hamlet's belief that he has been betrayed, likely as a result of (what he sees as) the mental weakness of women. In addition to that, it seems to me that Hamlet has a very strong dislike for - even disgust at - the concept of female sexuality, and that taints his relationships with both Ophelia and his mother. I think he's genuinely disgusted with the both of them for having any desires at all, and that's embodied in his nasty words to Ophelia, and to his request that his mother stop sleeping with his uncle (for forbid she have any lustful feelings). Still, it's difficult to separate the character of Hamlet from the age in which Shakespeare was writing, so it's debatable whether the entire arc was some attempt to put the hypocrisy of the men in the play on display, or whether it was just a reflection of Elizabethan attitudes generally…
Okay, I'm bluffing now because I seriously can't remember all that much of the play. Geez, it was only a couple of years ago...