DRJ #4

• Things are have gotten nifty in act four and five. My first reaction was the death of poor Ophelia, I have picked no sides in this story, but the with the side of the innocent. Although she did take part in spying for Polonius, I felt like she was just being used and taken advantage of. I am a "Ophelia sympathizer". She seemed to me to be the only one in the story I can only feel sorry for. Hell, I feel sorry for everbody. They all lost in their worlds of madness. I thought it was smart of Claudius to take care of Hamlet by just shipping him off to England. No confrontation necessary. Such a simple way to handle a nuisance. However, it was also clever of Hamlet to fake his incident with the pirates. I was surprized how fast the ending was. although act 5 scene 2 was long, then ending was quick with everyone dying. It was by far the most entertaining part of the scene!
• The character that I noticed mostly was Laertes. He was driven to punish who was responsible for his father's death(Polonius). However, I did seem skeptical whether or not he truly loved his father. When Claudius questioned him if he Laertes grief was a illusion, I began to wonder if Laertes was really grieving or seriously wanted to kill who was responsible(Hamlet). Perhaps Claudius was just nugging at Laertes to get him motivated to plot the killing of hamlet. After all, He Laertes does go on to describe how he'll kill Hamlet. Poison tip.
• The theme I think is destruction. I'm not sure how to go about explaining it, but Laertes dies, Hamlet dies, Gertrued dies, and Claudius dies. Just total destruction of noble life in this one scene. It's the destruction of not only "noble" people of noble birth(with barely any noble intensions), but It's a destruction of an entire family.