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Polonius' concerns are different -- he warns her that Hamlet is "out of her star" and that she should not give too much weight to Hamlet's "tenders" of affection.
What does the Ghost tell Hamlet to do and not to do? Why does Hamlet believe he needs independent proof about the validity of the Ghost?
The Ghost tells Hamlet to take vengeance upon his uncle for his death, but not to harm Hamlet's mother. Hamlet knows that his mind is slightly unbalanced from his grief, though, so he devises a test. He believes that devilish beings often prey upon people who are slightly unhinged because of a loss.
Act 2
Who is Polonius? What is his analysis of Hamlet's "madness"? What do his speeches show us about him?
Polonius is the king's advisor and counselor. He believes that Hamlet is mad for love of Ophelia. He speaks...
He is pretending to be mad, but this decision does not really seem to advance his plot to take revenge on Claudius. The idea of using a play to 'out' the king seems questionable, and a stalling action rather than a real test. Hamlet is upset that the Player King seems more upset about a fictional dead person than a real dead person, but Hamlet is only creating another fiction in the form of a staged play.
Heaven and earth! Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him as if increase of appetite had grown by what it fed on: and yet, within a month, -- Let me not think on't, -- Frailty, thy name is woman! -- a little month; or ere those shoes were old With which she followed my poor father's body Like Niobe, all tears; -- why she, even she, --
.. O, woe is me, t' have seen what I have seen, see what I see!" (3.1. 116-164). The connotation is that her heart is breaking. This scene combined with her original startled outcry to Polonius in Act I further illustrates that Ophelia was in love with Hamlet, and that she did not meet him with ill intent despite the ulterior motives of everyone else. This further builds upon previous evidence
To act in a murderous, vengeful way that is contrary to his true nature, and to assume madness creates madness. At first, Hamlet suggests that vengefulness in a corrupt court is a kind of sanity, when he vows to put on an antic disposition, but he acts in a way that is more and more contrary to his moral nature as the play goes on, rebuking his mother against
He questions whether he should try to clear the court of corruption or just give up and end his life now. It is this emotional doubt that drives Hamlet to act deranged at times, but he overcomes it, and almost manages to answer the difficult questions posed in his life. In Act V, when calm returns, Hamlet repents his behavior (V, ii, 75-78) (Lidz, 164). In Lidz's book Freud is
Throughout the play Shakespeare presents Ophelia as the symbol of innocence who is destroyed by the evil and harshness of the world; which has its origins in the murder of the King. We experience her slide towards insanity in terms of the terrible predicament of her situation. It is also tragically ironic that the real cause or her madness is the murder of Hamlet's father, which has also driven Hamlet
After Hamlet has killed Polonius and Laertes has returned from Paris demanding satisfaction, Hamlet justly observes "by the image of my cause, I see the portraiture of his." It is the contrasts between these three characters which give significance to the parallelisms. The intelligent, sensitive Hamlet and the hot-headed Machiavellian Laertes perish on the same poisoned foil, leaving the kingdom to the cool-headed Norwegian, who has been a shrewder contriver