hamlet book review

Hamlet and Two HeroinesHamlet is one of the most famous play that written by William Shakespeare. It is thetragedy of tragedies. This is a story about revenging ending in perishing together. After reading through the whole play, two heroines, Gertrude and Ophelia, impress me most. InMiddle Ages, women were considered as appendages of men, so were Gertrude and Ophelia.They both have close bound with Hamlet, the hero, and love him deeply. However, doesHamlet love them as much as they do? It confuses me a lot.“Are you honest? Are you fair?”In front of Ophelia’s tomb, Hamlet declares that“What is he whose griefBears such an emphasis? Whose phrase of sorrowConjures the wand’ ring stars, and makes them standLike wonder-wounded hearers? This is I,Hamlet the Dane”, and“I loved Ophelia, forty thousand brothersCould not with all their quantity of loveMake up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?”Those words are aimed at refuting Laertes’s denouncement. It is more of a riposte thanexpression of love. Leartes imputes Ophelia’s death to Hamlet, exploding his grief withexaggerated tone. As soon as Hamlet hears his denouncement, he steps forward and wants toProve that his is much more distressed than Leartes.I first recognize Hamlet and Ophelia’s relationship from the conversation among Ophelia, her brother and her father. She believes that Hamlet loves her sincerely, but she was satirized by his father, Polonius. Then she follows Polonius’s advice, rejecting Hamlet’s letters and not meeting with him, which makes a breakthrough of their relationship. It seems that Hamlet becomes insane. In order to test his insanity, Ophelia recites what her father tells her, that makes Hamlet crazier.The death of Ophelia is a tragedy. The causes of her death include several reasons. First, Hamlet becomes “insane”and “breaks faith”. What’s worse, her father is killed and the murderer is Hamlet.What kind of affection dose Hamlet hold to Ophelia? Apparently, his love is neither a brain storm nor as much as “forty thousand brothers”. Hamlet cannot consider Ophelia as a companion and he hesitates to trust her. He loves her beauty and purity, but he cannot share his very secret with her and earn her support. What’s worse, the secret told by ghost makes mother’s image ruined. As far as he considers, Ophelia’s present beauty is not a promise to future chastity. What makes him upset is his uncertainty in his inside world. A critic commented Hamlet as “the giant of thoughts, the dwarf of actions”. He has no strong motion disclosure to Ophelia.As Hamlet describes, women are flirtations and weak-minded, which become women’s sin. While, beauty makes women easier to be tempted, so beauty becomes sin.“Frailty, thy name is woman!”When Hamlet is alone, he seldom thinks of Ophelia, but frequently thinks of his mother Gertrude. However, it is not a son’s attachment and love to mother, instead, it represents anger and hate. Certainly, it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t love his mother at all. It is more like a sense of stigma.Before the ghost tells him the secret, Hamlet complains a lot about his mother. A monologue of Hamlet is interesting.“Frailty, thy name is woman!A little month or ere those shoes were oldWith which she followed my poor father’s body,Like Niobe all tears, why she, even she,(O God, a beast that wants discourse of reasonWould have mourned longer) married with my uncle,My father’s brother, but no more like my fatherThan I to Hercules, Within a month,Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tearsHad left the flushing in her galled eyesShe m arried.”Those words are extreme disrespectful. It is hard to imagine that a son could say such words to describe his mother’s attitude to father, using a mass of vicious expressions. Gertrude has no idea of Claudius’s intrigues. If she has any fault, it might be her hasty marriage to Claudius after her husband’s death.In this play, these two heroines are quite different from former archetypal image. They do not turn “bad”, but turn “weak”. This kind of “weakness” anguishes Hamlet deeply. It is Ophelia’s weakness that results in her departing from Hamlet, going mad after her father’s death, and last drowning herself. Similarly, Gertrude is weak. She cannot get rid of Claudius. She drinks poisoned wine out of a mother’s love unwittingly.Frailty is not a negative character respect to ethical principle. But in Hamlet, it becomes an unforgivable fault. It is because Hamlet is a nobleman, a prince who should have inherited his father’s kingdom and become the new king. The reality is that, however, his king father is killed and his status is not protected, even his life is in danger. He has to spare his life, revenge for his father, and catch on reforming.“The time is out of joint, O cursed spite,That ever I was born to set it right!”At this particular time, he cannot but resent frailty, cannot but ask firmness.Hamlet has a monologue to praise mankind. He eulogizes “the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals”. I notice his order when he praises man: reason, faculties, form and moving, action, apprehension and beauty. It implies that Ophelia and Gertrude who are frail and irrational are in lower position.In Hamlet, men are used to saying a lot, no matter monologue or dialogue. But women are totally different. They cannot “say”. They can only “be said”.Ophelia in her father’s words is a simple even frivolous girl. She is ignorant of worldly affairs and sometimes is easy to be cheated. Ophelia in her brother’s words is a naïve child, but in front of public, he praised her as well as possible. Ophelia in Hamlet’s words is inconstant. Sometimes she is as pure as Cynthia. Sometimes she has no difference with flirtatious girls.Gertrude is same with Ophelia. In Hamlet’s monologue, she is an immoral queen who married her brother-in-law before long her husband’s death. In faceoff, regardless of a mother’s dignity, Hamlet sharply rebukes Gertrude and his words are like swords pierce her heart deeply.Feminine images serve as men’s foil. They cannot express themselves because no one will listen to them. Gradually, females lose their thought and controlled by males.“Frailty, thy name is woman!”What a striking sentence! In the play named by the hero’s name, female image is fragile and speechless. Hamlet repudiates frailty because he believes this kind of frailty will lead to disloyalty and bring males lethal damage.Now I draw the conclusion that Hamlet does not love Ophelia and Gertrude as he thinks. His love is not pure, which is the worst tragedy to them all. Too many things are blocked in his love, including the revenge, the disappointment, the hatred, and the uncertainty to himself. Those impacts result in an irretrievable ending. Hamlet seems to become a misogynist. However, it is he who generates all these tragedies.。