The whole castle mourns for dear Ophelia's death. It was most tragic and unexpected. She was a bit mad before though, we believed it to be due to her beloved father's abrupt passing but words have been going around lately that some gentleman named Peter Seng believes that there was reason behind her bawdy ballads. Ballads are often love songs and are formatted in quatrains.
Although much of Ophelia's songs express the unjust terms of her father's death and burial such as when she sings, "He is dead and gone, at his head a grass-green turf, at his heels a stone" (Shakespeare IV.v.30-32), she speaks of the cause of insanity as well. Seng directs the root cause for Ophelia's corruption back to Polonius and Laertes ruining her belief that every man is as he seems while trying to protect her. Laertes had told Ophelia that Hamlet's love for her was only, "A violet in the youth of primy nature, forward, not permenant- sweet, not lasting, the perfume and the suppliance of a minute; no more" (Shakespeare I.iii.6-9). Ophelia tells Laertes of his cause in her downfall through her song when she sings, "false steward that stole his master's daughter" (Shakespeare IV.167-168). According to Seng, "[Laertes] fails to recall that it was just such false lovers that he had once warned her against" (Seng) because is so set on avenging his father's death and sister's madness.
The most tragic part about poor Ophelia's circumstance was that Hamlet did indeed love her and that it was she acting upon the words from her father and brother that drove Hamlet to mistrust her. Seng says, "For indeed, she had believed Hamlet; and as it turns out, though tragically and too late, her trust was not misplaced" (Seng). Hamlet may have overreacted in Ophelia's slight attempts of distrust towards him of her by commanding her to, "Get thee to a nunnery: why would thou be a breeder of sinners? (Shakespeare III.i.118). Because Ophelia lived only to please her father, brother, and Hamlet, she toke Hamlet's cruel words to heart and expressed her hurt in her song when she sang, "For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy" (Shakespeare IV.v.177). Seng believe that this is from a ballard from Robin Hood and that Ophelia is comparing herself to Maid Marian. It is well-known knowledge that Marian is a model of promiscuity. Although Ophelia was not promiscuous, she believes herself to be because Hamlet accused her of it in his anger.
Overall, this Peter Seng fellow seems to have a solid point. He is knowledgeable on a lot of the background of what is going on here at Elsinore. He also seems to be an educated man as he uses elevated diction. I can really appreciate his argument because it is very logical and seems to lend support to his thesis. Seng also analyzes Ophelia's use of metaphors and symbolism to express how she feels and what she thinks over herself, her father's death, and her relationship with Hamlet. For example, she compares herself to Maid Marian from Robin Hood and also uses plants as symbols like rosemary to symbolize remembrance at weddings and funerals. One flaw that I can think of is that Ophelia may not know that Laertes took part in her downfall. She greets him happily as she sings to him, "I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died" (Shakespeare IV.v.175-176). By this, I would assume that she means that she would be happy to see him but her father's death has made her depressed. Ophelia did not seem to accuse Laertes because as fat as she knew at that point, Hamlet did not love and Laertes was right. It is only after her death that Hamlet admits, "I lov'd Ophelia: forty thousand brothers could not, with all their quantity of love, make up my sum," (Shakespeare VI.i.216-218). Despite this one possible flaw in his argument that I have found, Seng has cleared up a lot of which has remained a mystery about Ophelia's end. We can now feel sympathy for the suffering that Ophelia had felt.
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