HameNun+Alex+Song

Hamlet Scene Interpretation

The nunnery scene in //Hamlet// is a very famous scene when Hamlet makes the famous “To be or not to be, that is the question” speech, and shouts to Ophelia to go to a nunnery, rather than marrying somebody. However, throughout the play, Ophelia’s father Polonius and the main antagonist, the King Claudius, are hidden behind a curtain to overhear what Hamlet is saying. Thus, our question naturally leads to this: Does Hamlet know that the two characters are hidden behind a curtain to overhear him while he’s expressing his madness in front of his lover Ophelia? From all the lines in the scene, the answer will be “Yes.” There are many evidence to support this answer. When Hamlet is supposedly making his soliloquy, he does notice the presence of the two characters. This is supported by the fact that during the speech, Hamlet doesn’t directly state the name King Claudius, but still refers to him by saying, “to be or not to be” which in this case, means he is contemplating about whether to carry out his revenge or wait until he has more proof of Claudius’s crime. And if Hamlet didn’t think the characters were behind the arras, he would have been more explicit in his speech by making some more comments about the present state of Denmark in front of Ophelia. Furthermore, when Ophelia talks to him about the gifts, Hamlet is obviously painful at the thought of himself being compared to Claudius giving gifts to his mother Gertrude. This is shown when he says, “Ha, ha? Are you honest?” because he remembers that his mother disgraced herself by deceiving herself and accepting the gift of her husband’s murderer. And, while juxtaposing this with Ophelia, Hamlet obviously makes another sharp and sarcastic remark about the people hiding by mentioning “honesty”, which attacks Claudius’s questionable takeover. Finally, Hamlet gets mad at Ophelia and tells her to go to a nunnery to not marry anyone. Here, he again is sarcastic about the hidden characters because he says “Those that are married–all but one–shall live.” Apparently, Hamlet is making sad remarks about how he cannot reach Ophelia anymore. However, if we delve into the speech, the one mentioned here is obviously Claudius because Hamlet vowed revenge for his father’s murder, and Hamlet hereby declares that Claudius should be dead here. When Hamlet is talking to Ophelia, it is very hard to see if Hamlet is employing a double meaning or not because he is apparently mad, and makes speech sound not credible enough to those that listen to him. However, based on the lines observed above, it is plausible to assume that Hamlet was aware of the characters behind the scene because he, while talking to Ophelia about the destroyed love, makes effective connection to the destroyed relationship between him and the Denmark royal court.