Sample Essay - Hamlet 4

             Prompt: Two Associated Characters

            How would you react if you found out that your father was killed by someone who is close to you? Would you seek revenge or go crazy? In the play of Hamlet by W. Shakespeare, there are two young people who lose their fathers and in result go slightly crazy. Hamlet who is the son of the late King Hamlet and Ophelia the daughter of Polonius both struggle emotionally and physically due to their father’s death. In the tragedy of Hamlet, Hamlet and Ophelia are both controlled by their fathers, go crazy when their fathers are killed, and think about taking their own lives as a result of these deaths.

           The motives of Hamlet and Ophelia that are see in Hamlet are often not their own, but their fathers. After the death of King Hamlet, the King Hamlet comes back as a ghost to haunt the mind of Hamlet. Late King Hamlet tells his son who has killed him and that he must take up revenge. An angered Hamlet wants to do his father well and agrees to obey him. Hamlet changes all of his plans and thought towards killing Claudius. Ophelia, a young girl who is in love with Hamlet, is convinced by her father that Hamlet could not really love her. Since Polonius wants to be on Claudius’s good side, he offers up his daughter to spy on Hamlet. Ophelia goes from loving Hamlet, to trying to trick and spy on him. Both of these characters, Hamlet and Ophelia, are living out their father’s wishes without using their own minds.

            Once Polonius and King Hamlet are murdered, Ophelia and Hamlet lose their minds as they are grieving. When King Hamlet dies, his son Hamlet is left in a very sad situation. Hamlet’s mother married his uncle, leaving Hamlet very confused and disturbed. When Hamlet is visited by his dead father’s ghost, the ghost tells Hamlet that Claudius is the one who killed him, and that he must in return kill Claudius. Once Hamlet finds this out, he goes crazy. He does not understand how Claudius and his mother could do such a thing. From this point on in the play, all of Hamlets motives are to kill Claudius. In result of this, Hamlet’s family and close friends think that he has gone crazy. When Polonius is killed by Hamlet, Ophelia becomes crazy. She is so sad and does not know how to function without her father. Ophelia wanders the streets like a homeless girl and talks to herself and anyone who will listen.

            While Ophelia and Hamlet are grieving over their fathers death, they both have no more desire to live. Hamlet talks about killing himself, but is afraid of the afterlife. Since Hamlet does not know what or how the afterlife will be, he decides not to take his own life. Ophelia is so crazy when her father dies that it is unclear if she chooses to take her own life or was just not careful with it. Both of these characters valued their father’s lives over theirs.

            Shakespeare linked these two characters together to show that if you take revenge upon yourself instead of giving it to God, you will be destroyed. Ophelia was taking up her fathers and Claudius’s revenge by spying on Hamlet. And Hamlet was taking up his fathers revenge by planning on killing Claudius.