AP Lit - Anastasia Kishiniovski

My Opinion of the "Nunnery Scene"

I enjoyed spending the week speculating about whether Hamlet knew he was being watched or not and directing our scenes while taking that into consideration. I found this to be one of the most emotionally charged scenes of the play so far so I'm sure Hamlet was emotionally invested in his conversation with Ophelia even though he probably knew Claudius and Polonius were watching from the sidelines. Hamlet may have been testing Ophelia to see if she could just blatantly lie to his face and betray his trust. When her response to his question about the location of her father was unfavorable to Hamlet, he became angry at the fact that Ophelia could be manipulated in such a way and is just being used to observe him. (Assuming he knew he was being watched) This is when he may have started playing the role of "mad Hamlet" again but Claudius saw right threw it. But his sudden madness may not have been entirely fabricated. He was already frustrated with the fact that he couldn't trust the people around him and the one person he felt that he could confide in was also being used to monitor him. This prompts his tirade against women when he basically implies that women are the source of all sins and evils and that only a fool could not see this. He comments on Ophelia's beauty and asks how she can be considered honest if she is so beautiful and he concludes that a woman's beauty is merely a tool of manipulation and is a sign of her dishonesty. He also asks her to stay pure and to not marry. It is not apparent whether he says this because he wants her to wait for him or whether he is being cruel by telling her that a man's marriage to her would bring him no good. His sentiments towards women were caused by his mother's sudden marriage to Claudius, which Hamlet felt was a betrayal to his father. These sentiments were only escalated by this conversation with Ophelia when he realizes that the women in his life cannot be trusted. This may have very well made him slightly crazy. Claudius and Polonius know that there is something very wrong with Hamlet but Claudius doesn't believe it has anything to do with his "love" for Ophelia. Polonius still believes that Hamlet has an unrequited love for Ophelia despite what he has just seen, which makes one question his judgement, and he suggests that the queen could talk to Hamlet before Claudius hastily sends him off to England to cure his sadness. Despite the emotional exchange that occurred between Hamlet and Ophelia, Ophelia is still very much in love with Hamlet even though he claimed their love was never real. After Hamlet exits, Ophelia laments on Hamlet's gradual decline as a person and she genuinely hopes that he gets better for his own good. But Ophelia's role in this story so far is not favorable to her and Hamlet simply tosses her aside while he deals with his other problems. Their relationship has only been characterized by a few scenes so far but they have all been conflicted in some way.