I had to write an essay to support my view on Ophelia death, becuase my english teacher did not accept my "suicide" poem that is use to reflect the death motif oh Hamlet. His response was "Nobody in Hamlet killed themselves" I said "Ophelia did". The play did not directly say that her death was a sucide but one can assume it was. So here is an essay I have to write, while others students don't have to.
Please help me come up of a better title and edit my first part of essay please
Here is the whole entire essay, I hope it is not that confusing. Please help me. I don't really know how to end the essay properly...lol
---------------------------------------Accident or Suicide?
Denied the freedom of speech, she cannot survive the contemptuous conversations of the cruel world. Throughout the play Ophelia represented the floral motif; beautiful but yet fragile. Being a female in a kingdom filled with chaos and deceptions, the innocent Ophelia force to keep silent and obey to the domineering men in her life. Although Ophelia is not the focal character in Hamlet, the audience can not help to feel sympathetic toward a character who has undergoes emotional and physical suffrages throughout this tragedy. With the queen descriptive details and the priest comments on the manner of her death, we can then conclude that Ophelia death was a suicide not an accident.
"Queen: Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide, and mermaid-like awhile they bore her up, which time she chanted snatches of old tune, as one incapable of her own distress, or like a creature native and indued unto that element." (IV, VII: 190-195)
Shakespeare has deliberately left Ophelia's death with a question mark over whether it was an accident or suicide. He has done this to allow the audience to picture her death as they wanted to. As she dies she sings "snatches of old tunes". We are thus encouraged to believe without struggle, the singing maiden surrendered to the water and drowned. Ophelia, driven insane by Hamlet's cruelty and the murder of her beloved father, plunges from a tree branch and then into a river. Although her fall may be an accident, Ophelia makes no attempt to save herself, and thus her drowning is viewed as a suicide. Gertrude described her death as "mermaid-like". Shakespeare has used this language to add a sense of calm and peacefulness. In another sense Ophelia has accepted this fate, nor once did she resist or fight back the river current.
"Gravedigger: Is she getting a Christian burial, even though she willfully took her own life?" (V, I: 1-2)
"Gravedigger: For here lies the point; if I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act, and an act hath three branches - it is to act, to do, to perform; argal, she drowned herself wittingly." (V, I: 9-11)
"If she hadn't been a gentlewoman, she wouldn't get a Christian Burial," commented the gravedigger. Just days has passed after Ophelia drowning incident, the kingdom begin to question the legitimacy of Ophelia burial, due to the manner of her death. During the medieval era, self-murder was a mortal sin in the eyes of the Church, penalized by prohibition of burial in consecrated ground. Even the priest made comments how it would abuse the Christian burial system if he was to sang a solemn dirge and laid her to rest like a soul that die in peace. If this was not a suicide, Shakespeare wouldn't add the "mermaid" imageries and the reoccurring topics about the legitimacy of her burial. In most Shakespearean plays such as "Romeo and Juliet", "Macbeth" the female protagonist tends to resort to suicide, this play is not an exception. When Juliet found out that Romeo has died, she immediately drank the poison without any hesitation. While in "Macbeth", Lady Macbeth conscience affects her to such an extent that she eventually commits suicide.
Greetings!
I think you present a compelling case for Ophelia's suicide! Here are some editing suggestions:
Ophelia is forced to keep silent
cannot help but feel sympathetic toward a character who has undergone emotional and physical suffering throughout this tragedy.
With the queen's descriptive details and the priest's comments on the manner of her death, we can then conclude that Ophelia's death was a suicide, not an accident.
Ophelia makes no attempt to save herself, and thus her drowning is viewed as a suicide. - Since you are making an argument that it was suicide, rather than saying "is viewed as" it would be better to say something like, "her drowning becomes a suicide."
In another sense Ophelia has accepted this fate, nor once did she resist or fight back the river current. - It's not really "another sense." Say: Ophelia has accepted her fate; she did not resist or fight the river's current."
Just days [delete "has passed"] after Ophelia's drowning [delete "incident"], the kingdom begins to question the legitimacy of Ophelia's burial, due to the manner of her death.
if he were to sing a solemn dirge and lay her to rest like a soul that died in peace.
the recurring questions about the legitimacy of her burial.
In many Shakespearean plays, for instance, "Romeo and Juliet" and "Macbeth," the female protagonist [delete "tends to"] resorts to suicide. -
I would then omit the more specific references to the other plays, as they tend to make you stray from the main point and are distracting. I would then go on to conclude that paragraph with something like: This play is another example of that device. From Ophelia's refusal to make any attempt to save herself, to the pointed comments of the gravedigger and priest, the evidence is clear: however Ophelia's death began, it ended as a suicide.
I hope this is helpful to you!
Thanks,
Sarah, EssayForum.com
Just a couple of pieces of advice on this excellent piece, and a lead.
First, you need a first paragraph that states the topic of the essay and what it intends to demonstrate. You've not done bad introducing this in your posting, but if the essay starts with the term "Denied" it needs a beginning. Make the essay a work that stands on its own; don't take it in the context of an ongoing discussion with your teacher.
Second--you should mention (or footnote) that you've redacted the language (or cite your source for the redacted version). Third, as long as you're redacting, you might want to change the clown's "argal" to something more modern, though clownifying it requires some imagination on your part (which I'll not try to supplant).
Finally, the lead--if you look for the commentary note on Crowner's quest law at
leoyan.com/global-language.com/ENFOLDED/eh2hw.php?dir=HWORKS3200&query=3211,
you'll see a pile of commentary on the "Crowner's quest" case of Sir James Hales, the very case that Shakespeare was apparently satirizing with his gravedigger's hair-splitting nonsense. Hales's death was ruled a suicide, and his widow lost her inheritance. Moberly says that she lost "on the ground that 'an act has three branches, imagination, resolution, and execution,' and that consequently her husband's attainder and forfeiture were complete as soon as these three elements of the act were complete." This is only one of the features of that case that Shakespeare alludes to in the gravedigger's patter.
According to the preview, that URL doesn't appear correctly in this post. To see it, you take run the following together without the line break
Dan Hoey, haoyuep@aol.com
