Modernism

I probably would guess that Shakespeare was not a modernist. For one, his play is under control to a degree. I mean it could be worse, what if the second Hamlet saw the ghost he went Steven Seagal on the whole kingdom. That would have been entertaining and chaotic, but that is not Shakespeare. Anyway, you could make a case that everyone is going crazy and on the other hand they could just be faking; so I can not make an accurate judgment on the chaos within the play. Also, if Shakespeare wanted to make the play more chaotic, he would have had more dynamic characters. Like R and G would have been stoners who decide to lead a revolt, Gertrude would have had an affair going on while she was married to Claudius, Ophelia would have been whoring and Polonius would have been gay- Claudius and him were good friends. Anyway, that's all I got to say... not really, but I'll give it a rest for a while.

CRAZY OR NOT CRAZY

Quite honestly, Ophelia is genuinely insane. I could list all those crazy love songs that she sings about Hamlet, but I'm not going to because my blog would become dense and cumbersome. Anyway, when someone starts using words like "beatufied," I'm assured that something is wrong with the character. I feel as if all the characters in this play reflect how Hamlet wants the world to be. For example, Hamlet thinks all women are weak; therefore, Ophelia now looks so ridiculously stupid that she becomes frail and useless. Now I have a question for who or whatever may read this, why does Shakespeare have no "good" characters; I mean Polonious was a rat, Claudius is Cain, Hamlet is Shylock (MERCHANT OF VENICE), Gertrude lusts every guy she sees, Ophelia is psycho, Guildenwhatever and Roschaya are as good as trees, the Ghost is in hell, Laertes might be good, but what can we say is good about him- he wants to kill Hamlet.

Duh its a ghost

#2- Why isn't the Queen able to see the ghost since he was her husband?

I now would speculate that Hamlet is completely crazy and Hamlet is on some kind of drug like Ecstasy. Obviously, this is a figment of Hamlet's imagination, or what if Gertrude is lying to Hamlet and she can see Hamlet SENIOR? I can not answer that because I am not inside Gertrude's head, but if I was a bet she is lying to her son.

How my parent's want me to think

Hamlet's parents have influenced his thoughts drastically. First, Hamlet thinks his whole kingdom is a bunch of drunks because Claudius and his mother are always drinking. In scene 1.4, Hamlet says, "They clepe us drunks," and he obviously associates being king with being krunk. Anyway, his father probably had him under the illusion that he would succeed his father as king. His parents probably informed him that he could not choose his wife, but rather the people would. I get this from inference because he says "I loved you, I never loved you" to Ophelia. I get the impression that Hamlet's saying yeah your good looking and I had a thing for you, but in reality, it could never be and to me it never really happened either. Furthermore, Hamlet has also been influenced by his father's view that revenge is a necessity in life. The ghost of Hamlet reminds hamlet, "do not forget" revenge... the i for an i view of life.

what i've done

I do think that Claudius is crazy. First, he realizes the mistakes he has made, which is a result of his obsession for power and incest. As seen, in his speech: "'Forgive me my foul murder' That cannot be, since I am stilled possessed of those effects for which I did the murder." From my perspective, Claudius realizes he has done crazy things and wants Hamlet as far away from him as possible because he sees a correlation between their actions. Claudius could think that Hamlet will go completely crazy and do just as him- murder the king.

Overall, I would argue that Claudius believes his nephew is indeed crazy. We see this in when Claudius is calling for help from "angels." You could argue that he is calling for repentence for his sins, but I am going to put it out there that he is crying for help to angels for protection from Hamlet because he knows his secret.

Questions

Why can't Gertrude see the ghost?

Why does Claudius all of a sudden decide to send Hamlet away?

Why is Hamlet so eager to kill, when he does not even know the person behind the tapestry?

Blissful love

Honestly, I do not think that Hamlet ever truly loved Ophelia. At times, he was probably thinking she good looking or this relationship has potential, but his actions do not reflect a genuine love. We see this in Hamlet's love letter:
" Doubt thou the stars are fire
Doubt that the sun doth move
Doubt truth to be a liar,
But never doubt love
O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers. I have not art to reckon
my groans. but that love thee best O most best, believe it. Adieu.
Thine evermore, most dear lady, whilst this machine is him Hamlet."

First, this letter has terrible poetic flow; it starts ourt good, but then it's almost like Hamlet says indirectly I really do not care that much about the letter so I just going to do an okay job rather than try to impress you, Ophelia. When he breaks rhyme scheme, I almost think that he saying you know what I really do not care that much about you and Hamlet says that he does not care about impressing Ophelia. That would be equivelant to a guy walking up to his girlfriend and saying yeah you look decent. This tells me that he really does not care about love, but rather just the experience of life. Essentially, Hamlet also uses the word "beautified" in one of his letters, and thus I would say that he could not find a word to describe Ophelia; so inturn, he decided he was to lazy to look for a word, and then he just made one up. This shows that Hamlet once again does not value the relationship with Ophelia because he does not put any effort into the relationship.

Scene i and ii response

Philosophy is key within these scenes. Hamlet debates why someone would avoid suicide and concludes we are afraid of the unknown. Also, when Claudius leaves the players's presentation, I would conclude that this ghost hamlet saw was not a hallucination. If it is, Hamlet is truly going crazy and it would point to that it was coincidence that Claudius just walked out. It just does not make sense that Claudius would have stomach flu at the exact same that the potential murder he committed appeared on stage in front of his whole kingdom. Also, what is Hamlet doing to Ophelia? Does he totally want her? I think he might be insane. Have a good weekend MJ.