Sunday, February 12, 2012

Where does Hamlet repeatedly tell Ophelia to go?

In act three, scene one, Ophelia interrupts Hamlet's moving soliloquy and follows her father's orders by returning his romantic gifts while Claudius and Polonius spy on them. Hamlet initially denies ever giving Ophelia any of the presents and admits that he does not have romantic feelings for her. After Hamlet tells Ophelia that he never loved her, he tells Ophelia,

"Get thee to a nunnery" (Shakespeare, 3.1.131).

He then proceeds to ask her why she would ever want to give birth to more sinners like himself, who are capable of committing horrific deeds. Hamlet then criticizes himself by listing his numerous vices and pronouncing that every person is an "arrant knave" before encouraging Ophelia to once again hurry to a nunnery.
One could argue that Hamlet's negative feelings towards his mother, Gertrude, have led him to the conclusion that the best place for a woman to be is in a nunnery, where she is forbidden from having sex and free from influential, sinful men like Claudius. Despite his love for Ophelia, Hamlet is completely jaded in regards to women and does not have a positive view of himself. Hamlet then proceeds to criticize marriage and his apparent frustration with women in general sets the stage for the impending confrontation with his mother.


In one of the more heartbreaking scenes of Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hamlet tells Ophelia to go to a nunnery. Hamlet says that while he did love Ophelia once, he does not anymore. As with many parts of Hamlet's character, we do not know how much of what he says is sincere. At this point in the story he has become increasingly unhinged, and his mother remarrying has increased his revulsion to all things sexual and romantic. He even goes as far to compare sex to animals rolling in a sty. Hamlet takes on an almost antinatalist philosophy at this point, telling Ophelia that it would be better for her to simply join a nunnery and give up on any sort of romantic endeavor whatsoever. He thinks of it as a better alternative than the idea of her "bearing more sinners."

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