Viewing and Analysis a) In the in which Aphelia returns tokens of love from him
(Hamlet), William Shakespeare portrays Hamlet as first as a normal man, but then
as Aphelia returns his tokens of love, he seems to enter his “so-called”
state of madness. Shakespeare seems to reflect him as a character that just
suddenly hits madness when he is turned down by Aphelia, which is the reason
that all the people in the kingdom seem to believe he is mad. Hamlet claims he
will pretend be in a state of madness, but in this scene he simply for no reason
that Shakespeare presents he goes mad. Shakespeare also does not explain
Hamlet’s sudden outburst of madness. This madness of Hamlet’s suddenly arose
when Aphelia said, “My honour’d lord, I know right what you did; … Rich
gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind. There, my lord.” Now up until this
line Hamlet acted in a very sane manner, but after she tells him this he seems
to loose it. He replied, “Ha, ha! Are you honest?” Aphelia: “My lord?”
Hamlet: “Are You Fair” Aphelia: “What mean’s your lordship?” Hamlet:
“That if you honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your
beauty” In this line Hamlet seems to be telling Aphelia that her beauty is
manipulating. In this scene Hamlet also goes on to ask about Polonius, and then
yells out “Let all the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool
nowhere but in’s own house” While Hamlet is saying all this, what he does
not know is that Polonius and the King are spying on Hamlet during this lashing
out by Hamlet. Now seeing as how Shakespeare does not seem to tell us at all as
to how Hamlet could know that the King was there, watching and listening. Since
that Hamlet did not know that they were there, any viewer of this play would not
understand Hamlet’s sudden madness and have reason to believe the his feigned
madness drives him to actual madness. b) Zeffirelli portrays Hamlet a more then
your average person. He seems to display Hamlet as a highly intelligent, quick
thinking person. He seems to emphasize Hamlet’s awareness over and over again.
In the scene in which Aphelia returns tokens of love from him, Zeffirelli shows
Hamlet’s awareness and intuitiveness. Now, in the scene when Aphelia says to
Hamlet, “My honour’d lord, I know right what you did; … Rich gifts wax
poor when givers prove unkind. There, my lord.” and returns his tokens, Hamlet
turns away for a split second, and notices a shadow of a person in the top
walking by. At that very moment Hamlet realizes that he is being watched and
realizes it’s most probably the king. So at that very moment Hamlet turns
around and goes back and says the following things: “Ha, ha! Are you
honest?” Aphelia: “My lord?” Hamlet: “Are You Fair” Aphelia: “What
mean’s your lordship?” Hamlet: “That if you honest and fair, your honesty
should admit no discourse to your beauty” In this scene Hamlet also goes on to
ask about Polonius, and then yells out “Let all the doors be shut upon him,
that he may play the fool nowhere but in’s own house” While Hamlet is saying
all this, what he does know that Polonius and the King are spying on him during
this lashing out by towards Polonius. The whole reasoning behind Hamlets faking
this state of madness is that he believes that the King is responsible for the
death of his father. And so by saying things that have a double meaning during
his “madness” maybe he will be able to get the King to show some guilt or
even break him down until he finally confesses to the murder. Now with that
sudden change in Hamlet’s behavior after spotting the shadow he goes into this
madness state of his showing to people that he is faking this, only because he
knows the ones whom he wants aware of his madness, are aware. C) Zeffirelli’s
actions in changing the scene can be justified. First off, the idea of making
the shadow of Polonius visible was one which was a good one because it let
everyone that was viewing the movie know that Hamlet had not really gone mad but
was doing this because he realized he had to keep on playing this role.
Secondly, when directors create a movie it is made so that audiences watch the
movies, had he not put the Shadow in most people would have believed Hamlet had
gone mad, and would not understand how at the end of the movie or in the next
scenes be able to reveal all the truth to the people. Third, the shadow also
added to how Zeffirelli kept on portraying Hamlet as an intelligent, aware and
intuitive character that her was. Zeffirelli had also show this great awareness
that Hamlet had when Polonius was talking to Aphelia about not seeing Hamlet and
when he picked up as to what was going on. And a fourth reason is that
Zeffirelli had to make this movie as entertaining as possible, because that’s
what all directors do. They change the script, change the scenes, and just about
anything else to make the movie entertaining.