Love in Hamlet
Uploaded by Super_Jeff on Jan 23, 2002
In his play, Hamlet, William Shakespeare explore’s many different types of love. One type of love is Hamlet’s love toward Ophelia, his romantic love. Shakespeare shows the everlasting love between two people, which can never be broken, friendship, the friendship Hamlet had with Horatio. Paternal love was when Hamlet was very affectionate with his mother, in the beginning of the play, but as it progressed, he became more bitter toward her. Another type of love is the love for power, which Claudius possessed.
There are many ways to prove Hamlet’s love toward Ophelia to be true. At the beginning of the play, when Hamlet decided to pretend madness, he pretends that he does not love Ophelia, he rejects, and insults her “Get thee to a nunnery.” (3.1.121). This, of course, means that he has been in love with her before, has let her think that she was loved. Before that, when Hamlet learns about his father’s murder, you could see that Hamlet does in fact trust Ophelia, because she is one of the few loved ones he has left to turn to. Sure he trusts, and loves, his family to some extent, but his father is dead, and his uncle is the one who murdered him. The only other woman in his life, his mother Gertrude, has betrayed him in a way, by marrying Claudius. You could see Hamlet’s love for Ophelia because he did write the love letter to her in which he did say he loved her. Act 3 Scene 1 is where it would be possible to consider Hamlet’s love for Ophelia to be untrue. Before visiting with her, Hamlet thinks about suicide in his “To be or not to be” soliloquy. After that, his purpose for revenge on Claudius makes him more miserable, or mad, but when Ophelia comes Hamlet is momentarily happy and recognizes the importance of his love towards her. Hamlet says to her “That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discoure to your beauty.”(3.1.107). He is saying to her that she can be honest and fair, but it is almost impossible to join the two because honesty comes from within and beauty is an external feature,. He wanted her to remain pure, like when he says, “Ay, truly, for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd that the force of...