Alex Hogan

Hamlet Essay
4
Hamlet’s feelings for Gertrude (his mother) and Ophelia are never

constant throughout the play. Hamlet begins the play with nothing but love for

Ophelia, and a slight contempt for his mother. He soon changes his emotions for

Ophelia and his mother. He no longer loves Ophelia and is quite repulsed by her,

and he also begins to feel sorry for his mother, but then quickly turns around and

learns to despise her.

Hamlet’s opening emotion for Ophelia is love. He writes Ophelia letters

and poems telling her of the love he has for her. Ophelia’s father, Polonius, reads

these letters and believes Ophelia is the reason Hamlet is starting to lose his grip

on reality. He decides to test his theory and watch Hamlet and Ophelia when

they are alone. He instructs Ophelia to wear her most seductive outfit and

attempt to seduce Hamlet. When she does, Hamlet accuses her of being a whore

and professes that he used to love her. He soon retracts his claim of love and

states that he never loved her at all.

Before long, Hamlet murders Ophelia’s father Polonius and Ophelia

begins to go mad. Hamlet no longer holds abhorrence for her, but instead he

feels sorry. Not soon after, Ophelia drowns. Ophelia’s death coerces hamlet’s

love for her to resurface and he realizes he has lost the woman he once cared

for.

Ophelia isn’t the only woman Hamlet let slip away emotionally. Hamlets

mother, Gertrude, also loses place within his heart.

 Alex Hogan

Figuratively, Gertrude begins off in a bad place with Hamlet. As soon as her

husband died, Gertrude was out and about with his brother Claudius. Hamlet

would never let that go and holds that against her for the rest of her life.

Gertrude confronts Hamlet and insists he has been offset. He asserts that

she’s the one with problems because she married her husband’s brother. They

argue and he tells her to look inside herself and begins to feel sorry her, thinking

that Claudius had been lying to her and deceiving her from the beginning. He

sees his father’s apparition and talks to it; his mother denounces everything he

said and is assured that he is going insane. Hamlet’s pity is quickly turned to

rage and he once more loathes his mother.

Hamlet spends the entire play attempting to discover and uncover the

truth behind his father’s death, but when he begins to expose the reality, he

becomes too enthralled with the case and emotionally strained. Therefore, he is

unable to maintain and balance his relationships with those he loves, especially

his mother, Gertrude and his love, Ophelia.