Hamlet Essay: Comparison of Gertrude and Ophelia -- comparison compare

juncture a Comparison of Gertrude and Ophelia in time though at opposite ends of the courtly society in the halls of Elsinore, the characters of Gertrude and Ophelia in Shakespeares crossroads have much in common. This essay intends to look that commonality. Howard Felperin in his essay Oerdoing Termagant illustrates one point of simile between these two female characters they are both recipients of Hamlets ill-will. Here he describes Hamlets verbal attack on Gertrude in the closet scene Even Gertrude vaguely perceives that Hamlets speech is inspired more by ancient texts than by every immediate situation Ay me, what act, / That roars so loud and thunders in the index? (III.iv.51-52) Here, as in so much of the bestow, we are confronted not with the ravings of a distressed personality but with the heroic frenzy of the prophets role. Moreover, Gertrudes terms are theatrical as well as bookish. They recover Hamlets own caveats to t he players about mouthing lines, boistero us a passion to tatters, and splitting the ears of the groundlings. Surely at this moment Hamlet oerdoes Termagant and out-herods Herod, oersteps the modesty of nature, and violates his own neoclassical doctrines of decorousness in speech and action as flagrantly as the almost unreformed ham among the tragedians of the city. In sum, Hamlet turns the stage during the closet scene into something intimately akin to the older theatrum mundi of Termagant and Herod, as he recasts the experience of the play into a straightforward morality drama in which everyone has a light and conventional role . . .. (103) Other critics agree that both women are recipients of Hamlets ill-will. In the Introduction to Twentieth Century I... ...ntieth Century Interpretations of Hamlet. Ed. David Bevington. Englewood Cliffs, NJ Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1968. Rpt. from An Approach to Hamlet. Stanford, CT Stanford University Press, 1961. Pennington, Michael. Ophelia Madness Her Only Safe Haven. Readings o n Hamlet. Ed. don Nardo. San Diego Greenhaven Press, 1999. Rpt. from Hamlet A Users Guide. New York Limelight Editions, 1996. Pitt, Angela. Women in Shakespeares Tragedies. Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego Greenhaven Press, 1996. Rpt. from Shakespeares Women. N.p. n.p., 1981. Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 1995. http//www.chemicool.com/Shakespeare/ settlement/full.html Wilson, John Dover. What Happens in Hamlet. New York Cambridge University Press, 1999.