March 30, 2003

The best news!!! My mom finally gave in, and I get my own domain name! So...in about a week or two, angelicdisaster.net will be up! *yays* Until then...I'm mostly going to be working on the tCoS, OotF, and Te sites....so no more updates for a while.

However...some other cool news...some of my graphics are going to Art Districts Friday. ^.^

Rufus is better chocolate covered!

What is love? How can it be defined? Is it even possible for one person to decide what this elusive emotion is? No. Because everyone has their own definition of what love consists of, then it is impossible to define what people think and how their actions belie their feelings. The universal standard of love, is caring, adoration, and the whole spew of feelings that one wishes to spend their life with another. But there are other kinds of love. Elusive love, tortured love, the hate of loving. The love that you feel for one but cannot embrace it for fear of other, larger events.

It is that kind of love that seems to be the most prevalent in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, especially when it comes to the protagonists relationship with Ophelia, the daughter of King Claudius’s advisor, the ever forgetful and meddling Polonius. We first see evidence of a relationship between the two in Act I, Scene III, where Ophelia is speaking with her brother Laertes, before the young man leaves for France. The two discuss the girls relationship with Prince Hamlet, and Laertes, playing the part of the protective brother, proclaims that Hamlet’s love for his sister is a ‘trifling of his favor,” and shouldn’t be taken too seriously. Because Hamlet is a prince, the brother doesn’t feel as though his love could be true, due to the fact that Hamlet’s “will is not his own,” and he must do what is proclaimed by the people. It is implied here that the young prince is shallow and isn’t capable of action, a theme that comes up again many times in the drama.

As the play continues, there is more evidence of Hamlet’s love for Ophelia, but there seems to be even more evidence that he doesn’t love her. After the prince decides that an insanity ploy is the best way to exact revenge on his stepfather/uncle, Ophelia becomes the victim of his plot, being treated like she was nothing more than a stepping stone in Hamlet’s life.

But that brings up an important question. Could Hamlet’s sudden indifference to Ophelia have sprung from an effort to keep her safe? The young prince knew that his revengeful plot could have dire consequences, consequences that could easily lead to his death or banishment. His actions could have easily been for his love protection, because if she were upset with him, then if his plan failed and he died, she wouldn’t be so hurt. Unfortunately, by doing this, he only hurt Ophelia more, once more bringing under scrutiny his true feelings for her.

However, there is evidence that Hamlet did truly love Ophelia, as seen in Act IV, Scene I, in which the prince proclaims “What, the fair Ophelia!…I love Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers could not, with all their quantity of love, make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?” His stepfather/uncle attributes it to the madness, but at this point in time, Hamlet had nothing at all to gain by disparaging Ophelia. His actions seem to have sprung from a deep despair over the loss of his lover, not from the madness that he was acting to be in the throes of. Not even the uncaring Hamlet could be so callused about the death of the woman he held a tortured affection for.

Yet in a similar way, Hamlet’s relationship with his mother was strained by his period of madness. When his fathers ghost appeared to the young man, it tells Hamlet to “Taint not thy mind against thy mother aught. Leave her to heaven, and to those thorns that in her bosom lodge, to prick and sting her,” which left Hamlet with little choice (Act I, Scene V). He couldn’t actually hurt his mother, under orders from the ghost, which can be perceived as a desire to fulfil his father’s words than to take actual vengeance on his mother for her small part in the death of the king. Or it can also be perceived as a true love for his mother, which some claim to be an Oedipus complex, despite the lack of evidence that points to an incestuous relationship. The only possible thing that could be interpreted as such is in Act IV, Scene VIII, when King Claudius declares that “The Queen his mother lives almost by his looks,” but even that doesn’t point to illicit activities.

Instead, Hamlet’s relationship, though strained, is one of love for the woman who brought him into the world. He, under instructions from his dead father, is “cruel, but not unnatural….speak[ing] daggers to her, but use[ing] none,” though it is alluded that he would not hurt her even without his fathers forbiddance. As he berates her in Act III, Scene IV, it is to inform her of the error in judgement, not to truly break her. He claims that she has offended his father, and the conversation, or rather the degradement of Gertrude, escalated to the point where the queen proclaimed “O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.”

Gertrude was a woman who could be easily manipulated, but unfortunatly, because Hamlet didn’t say more than he did, and didn’t act upon the words he did say, the queen didn’t fully repent, and ended up quite dead, along with all of the other main characters, save Horatio. It was Hamlet’s indecisiveness that cost him his own life, as well as the lives of so many others.