While were on the subject of whats going on inside Hamlets mind, consider his encounter with Ophelia.

This conversation, closely watched by Claudius and Polonius, is, in fact, a test. Its supposed to establish whether Hamlets madness stems from his lovesickness over Ophelia. Before we, the audience, see this encounter, we already think we know more than Claudius does: we know that Hamlet is only acting crazy, and that hes doing it to hide the fact that hes plotting against (or at least investigating) his uncle. Therefore, it cant be true that hes acting mad because of his love for Ophelia. But witnessing Hamlets encounter with her throws everything we think we know into question. Does Hamlet mean what he says to Ophelia? He says that he did love her once but that he doesnt love her now. There are several problems with concluding that Hamlet says the opposite of what he means in order to appear crazy. For one thing, if he really does love her, this is unnecessarily self-destructive behavior. Its unnecessary because it doesnt accomplish very much; that is, it doesnt make Claudius suspect him less. His professions of former love make him appear fickle, or emotionally withdrawn, rather than crazy. Is Hamlet really crazy or just pretending? He announced ahead of time that he was going to act crazy, so its hard to conclude that he (coincidentally) really went mad right after saying so. But his behavior toward Ophelia is both self-destructive and fraught with emotional intensity. It doesnt obviously further his plans. Moreover, his bitterness against Ophelia, and against women in general, resonates with his general discontentedness about the state of the world, the same discontentedness that he expresses when he thinks no one is watching. There is a passionate intensity to his unstable behavior that keeps us from viewing it as fake. Perhaps it is worthwhile to ask this question: if a person in a rational state of mind decides to act as if he is crazy, to abuse the people around him regardless of whether he loves those people or hates them, and to give free expression to all of his most antisocial thoughts, when he starts to carry those actions out, will it even be possible to say at what point he stops pretending to be crazy and starts actually being crazy?

In this famous "nunnery scene," Hamlet converses with Ophelia under the suspicious watch of Polonius and Claudius. Hamlet acts polite to her, until she tries to return a gift that he had given her. He denies ever giving it to her, but Ophelia further insists that he did, and that he knows it. She tells Hamlet that she cannot keep it because gifts are meaningless "when givers prove unkind." Hamlet then badgers Ophelia by questioning whether she is honest and fair-something that can be taken with a double meaningand claims that her beauty has corrupted it. He declares that he once loved her, only to take it back after her blunt reply, "Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so." Hamlet proceeds to denounce men as "arrant knaves" who are not to be believed. He interrupts himself to ask where her father is-which shows that he is aware or at least suspects that they are being watchedwhere she promptly lies, "At home, my lord." Hamlet continues to go on to curse her chastity or any future prospects of marriage and to attack womankind with their makeup and flirtatious ways. Ophelia is now convinced that Hamlet is insane, and attempts to call on the heavens to help him. Hamlet finally makes an unmistakable threat to Claudius before he leaves. " I say, we will have no more marriage. Those that are married already, all but one shall live." As with most of Hamlet's dialogues, his words have different levels of meaning. In this scene, he says what can be defined with both religious and sexual connotations. For instance, when Hamlet inquiries Ophelia to whether she is "honest" or "fair" he states that, "the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness." In this exchange, honesty and fairness can go along with Hamlet's whole theme of seeking truth, or it can be looked at as being chaste, since "a bawd" is someone who acquires women to use for

an immoral purpose. In Shakespeare's time, a "nunnery" was commonly used mockingly for a brothel, which would help to add to his final speech, "I have heard of your paintings too, well enough;" This almost goes along with Claudius' aside before (line 59), "The harlot's cheek beautified with plast'ring art," but Hamlet goes beyond makeup to insult the way women flirt and how they excuse their wontonness as ignorance. He declares that, "it hath made me mad" which might go to show that either he has been putting on an act, or that it relates to his later mention of his mother's marriage. When Hamlet ultimately instructs Ophelia "to a nunnery, go," it can be interpreted in several ways. It can be said because Hamlet still does truly love Ophelia and wants to protect her, or it can be because he wishes to send her to a brothel to act as the harlot he deems all of womankind to be.

At the beginning of the play, as Hamlet has decided to pretend madness, he pretends he does not love Ophelia anymore, he even rejects her and insults her (Act 3, scene 1). This, of course, means that he has been in love with her before, has let her think that she was loved. Her pain is then all the more intense. Why has he chosen to feign indifference towards her, to reject her, to deny that he loves her? Why does he repeat "To a nunnery, go". There were many other possible ways of feigning madness. What is important at that stage in the play is that Hamlet doesn't know what he's going to do yet. His meeting with Ophelia immediately follows his "to be or not to be" monologue. So he knows that if he does something, if he acts, if he kills the King, he will take serious risks and may die in the attempt. If he chooses not to act, he will lose his self-esteem. Whatever happens, he will not be fit for marriage. He will not be able to cope with the responsabilities of marriage, nor even with those of a sentimental involvement. Indeed when one is in love, especially if this love is shared, which was the case here, one is supposed to make the beloved one happy. Hamlet was supposed to get married to Ophelia sooner or later, to care for her, to protect her. At a time when women were totally submitted to their husbands, he would have had to be responsible for her. And after all, feigning not to love her anymore, he frees himself from this responsibility. This is in keeping with Hamlet's difficulty to make up his mind. Coping with responsabilities is enormously difficult for him. It takes him a whole play to do what his father's ghost asks him to do in the first act. Another reason why he rejects her is that marriage itself has become abhorrent to him. Because he has recently realised that his mother's second marriage is only a betrayal of love and of everything that is noble in life. "I say, we will have no more marriages". Another character might have been terribly shocked but not directly affected in his sentimental life. Another than Hamlet could have thought. "This is a terrible shame, but I'm different, my love for Ophelia is different and pure and I will always be true to her". But Hamlet loves his mother dearly, and he totally lacks self-confidence . As he has lost his faith in his beloved mother, he loses his faith in Ophelia because she is the other woman he loves. This is what he expresses when he questions her honesty in a rather obscure way : " That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty" Meaning : you cannot be both beautiful and honest. If you are beautiful, which I can see, which is obvious, therefore you can't be honest. My mother is beautiful and she is not honest. So, if at one point he believed in his love for Ophelia, he doesn't believe in marriage anymore nor in Ophelia anymore, and most of all he doesn't believe in himself sufficiently to fight his doubts and gloomy forebodings. Does it mean that his love was not sincere? On the contrary, most probably, he loved her as much as he could. But he couldn't love much. He was much so preoccupied by his own problems, his difficulty to face life, that he could not give much of himself to another person, be it the woman he loved. It is indeed the dominating trait of weak people. They love themselves (but also hate themselves) too much to be able to love others.