Initial Reaction: Polonius reminds me of my dad. He is overprotective of his son, Laertes and daughter, Ophelia. For the most part my dad is overprotective of my sisters and I. The way Hamlet is pretending to be crazy reminds me of many movies I have seen. They portray a character pretending to be something they are not to get something they need to help them with a certain situation or problem. Their selfishness always leads to a bad solution.
Character Analysis: For Act II, I chose Polonius. He is an overprotective, nosy, and confused old man trying go get to the bottom of Hamlet's maddness. I think Polonius would be a supporting character who develops Hamlet's character. He believes Hamlet's madness develeoped from the love he has for his daughter, Ophelia. Therefore, Polonius is developing Hamlet's character by making it seem that it is the passion and love he is feeling that caused his madness. And not the death of his father, King Hamlet and the remmarriage of his mother to his uncle.
Theme Analysis: The theme portrayed in Act II is Madness. The imagery used makes it easy to picture Hamlet as a crazy person. Upon his visit with Ophelia, Hamlet was dressed with rugged clothing, "all unbuttoned; without a hat; his stockings dirty; lacking gartes; and fallen round his ankles; pale as his shirt..." This makes it seem that Hamlet has gone mad from the love he has for the blinded Ophelia. When truly that was what Hamlet wanted to seem like to all others.
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I totally agree with your character analysis of Polonius. In fact, I also chose to write about his meddling ways as well. I think we view him as a confused old man, however, he believes that he is quite distinguished. LOL Your theme analysis is great. I completely overlooked the fact that Hamlet was "dressing the part" of a madman in addition to acting like one.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Polonius is everything you said he was. I also agree with Mechelle's point that he believes he is quite distinguished. He also feels he has this great intuition and ability to see the obvious when ironically he sees nothing.
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