Character Overview : Ophelia

Ophelia

Key Words: mental distress, depression, low self-esteem, lack of dignity, self identification, self perception, self deprecation.

1. What new information did you learn about your character in Act 4 that would help an actor or actress understand him or her better?

            The songs that she sings help express the reasons for her madness.

                        Ex. “He is dead and gone, lady” Act 4 Scene 5

2. In each scene where your character appears, what is his or her motivation and objective? In other words, what does he or she really want? (Sometimes this will be difficult or impossible to determine.)

            In act 4 scene 5, Ophelia appears distressed because her objective is for people to listen and no one did until she became mad.

                        “Pray you, mark.”

3. How does your character feel about the events in Act 4? About Hamlet?

            She’s conflicted by her feelings for Hamlet.

                        “He is dead and gone”

                                    -Hamlet

                                    -Old Hamlet

                                    -Polonius

4. What do other characters say about your character and how do they react to him or her? How does your character feel about other characters?

            “I will not speak with her.”-Gertrude

                        -Gertrude may not want to speak with Ophelia because she feels guilty that her son, Hamlet, killed Polonius and therefore she probably can’t face Ophelia out of guilt.

                        -Gertrude’s ignorance towards Ophelia’s madness doesn’t allow her to view past the superficial appearance.

            “She is importunate, indeed distract. Her mood will needs be pitied.” –Gentleman

                        -His response to Gertrude

            “Pray you, mark.” – Ophelia

                        -Ophelia just wants everyone to listen to her and she finally got fed up with being ignored and having her opinion being placed out of importance.

            “How do you, pretty lady?” – Claudius

                        -Her appearance

                        -He may want to be calming her down.

             “ Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?” - Gertrude

-Shows Gertrude’s shift in interest for Ophelia.

-She’s intrigued by the things Ophelia’s saying.

           

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Ham's Labyrinth

This is my artist statement for anyone who viewed my piece of artwork and took it into any further consideration.
     My individual artwork was named Ham's Labyrinth. The basic design of it is a labyrinth within the outline of a brain. To go further into description, the Labyrinth itself is color coded into three basic areas, which each lead to a basic outcome. These three outcomes are Life, Death, and Vengeance. The labyrinth itself is a representation of Hamlet's mind. To ensure that viewers realized this, the entire Labyrinth is within a mind so it is only a matter of understanding that aspect of the image. The reason there are these three outcomes is due to an idea that came out of both a classmate and the student that helped my group from Professor Werlin's class. The idea is that in Hamlet's mind there is a constant struggle of what to do next and what comes with making that choice. Because of this struggle, he is constantly stuck and confused on what the proper choice is. To get straight to the point " to be or not to be, that is the question" and "As meditation or the thoughts of love, May sweep to my revenge". Put even more bluntly the questions are: Should I live?, Should I die? and should I take revenge?.  He is never truly sure what he should do until the end and at that point he is already poisoned.
   So anyone seeing the image can understand it a bit more clearly, Hamlets course of mind is represented in blue and everytime something crucial happened there is a purple spot. These purple spots are Key Events in the play. To name a few: the beginning which starts of with the Late King having passed, then it continues with different events such as the fight with Ophelia and the play enacted to trick the King. Each time there is an event, Hamlet usually makes a drastic change in action but keeps a similar  perspective. By this, what I mean is that even if he is still acting differently, his mind and thoughts still revolve around the same subject. For example, when the King died Hamlet's question was "why can't I kill myself" or in his words "that this too too sullied flesh would melt". This is the basic outcome of death. Right before the fight with Ophelia, the question is should I live or should I die, or in his words "to be or not to be". That is where the choice life comes in. The reason that I have one more outcome is because the outcome itself shows somewhat of a halfway point between Life and Death: Vengeance.
   If you notice certain aspects of Hamlet and the way he talks, Hamlet notes Vengeance as the key outcome unconcerned about whether he lives or dies. He addresses Vengeance as something he can use to solve his problems but doesn't show his will to live. It is the middle point because vengeance is the point where he can either die or live. In the story he implies as though he is putting up with life for the sole reason of enacting his vengeance.  In other words, Vengeance is his reason to live so after he enacts his vengeance what happens to Hamlet? He is still left with the choice of being alive or taking his life.
   To refer back to the actual art , in the play I saw Hamlet lean towards Death and Vengeance. He never really leans towards Life but instead struggles with the fear of death and the aftermath. So this can be seen, " Who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life if not for the dread of something after death". He does fear what comes after death but if that fear wasn't there, and if it was not something he thought would be a sin, he would have had a deeper inclination to the other two outcomes and chosen them. He plainly states that he doesn't like the world. " How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable Seem to me all the uses of this world". It shows he puts up with life for fear and along with that vengeance.
   The Labyrinth itself ends in the outcome Vengeance. The reason being that he never chooses to die or to live. He just accepts his fate and in simple terms says "tell the truth about my story Horatio". He just accepts what's there but didn't say I want to live or save me or anything. He actually instead instantly tries to kill the King when he figures out he is about to die. He chose vengeance and with that accepted this outcome.
   Also to point out extra things about my image itself, the Labyrinth was a way of showing that Hamlet was always stuck within his mind and as a result, he could never really could decide what to do.  He didn't ever really decide whether or not he lived or died but nonetheless accepted it.
P.S
For anyone who got the reference, the name is a pun: Ham's Labyrinth and the pun is Pan's Labyrinth. I used this pun because Pan's Labyrinth it is a mythical maze that leads to the underworld. When applied to the story, the pun shows a kind of interesting twist to the story.

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Joseph'sgroup Daily Refecltion Period 2

Joseph Mora

Leslie Romero 

Eric Ayala 

Hernan Lorenzo

Jose Perdomo

Reflection

           It was great to see everybody perform their scene for today's class. It really helped me understand the scenes more deeply, especially act II scene II. I loved seeing Hamlet's character develop in this scene and how his conversation with Polonius said a lot about him. He is quick-witted and Polonius is slow in understanding what Hamlet is trying to tell him. This scene really depicts how Hamlet is always seemingly thinking and over thinking things and how he gives clues of his inner thoughts. I noticed the importance of asides in the scene, which hadn't previously registered with me as important, and how we can see Polonius' direct feelings/reactions towards how Hamlet is treating him. I also noticed more strategical things that Shakespeare does in this scene like the use of double entendre and dramatic irony.

 

On October 28, was about two groups performing “Words, words, words” and “The Nunnery” scene. I thought the first group gave detailed information about the scene. What struck me the most was when Jahmal explained the role of friendship, because that goes on in our everyday lives. Polonius is dense and also a spy. Hamlet talks about the book, but in reality he’s talking Polonius. The blindness by Polonius is irony, since he is not aware of Hamlet talking about his character. The second group also gave detailed information about the Nunnery Scene. Hamlet blames women, especially Ophelia, that they’re the reason why men get angry. He wishes all marriages to end all marriages and storms off. In my opinion, I believe that Hamlet shouldn’t be mad at Ophelia for one incident, and make bad assumption to all the women in the world.

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