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Old 12-18-2008, 06:40 PM   #8
gothicusmaximus
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 2,687
Quote:
Originally Posted by korinna5555
Act 2 Scene 2, Hamlet to Polonious: 'Conception is a blessing, but as your daughter may conceive - friend look to 't.'

Act 3 Scene 1, Hamlet to Ophelia: 'Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?'

Act 4 Scene 5: 'There's rue for you. And here's some for me.'
--rue is abortion-inducing
None of this mean she's pregnant. Just that she might eventually have children.
The rue one is particularly irrelevant, Shakespeare mentions rue in various other plays (like Richard II) in contexts that could never be imagined to involve pregnancy.

Hamlet couldn't have impregnated Ophelia because Hamlet is TERRIFIED of sex. "Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners" is part of this. Sexual stuntedness is a critical part of his character, to say he knocked a chick up is to undermine him completely.

This is Ophelia in Act 2, scene 1.

"My lord, as I was sewing in my closet,
Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced;
No hat upon his head; his stockings foul'd,
Ungarter'd, and down-gyved to his ancle;
Pale as his shirt; his knees knocking each other;
And with a look so piteous in purport
As if he had been loosed out of hell
To speak of horrors,--he comes before me."

She continues...

"He took me by the wrist and held me hard;
Then goes he to the length of all his arm;
And, with his other hand thus o'er his brow,
He falls to such perusal of my face
As he would draw it. Long stay'd he so;
At last, a little shaking of mine arm
And thrice his head thus waving up and down,
He raised a sigh so piteous and profound
As it did seem to shatter all his bulk
And end his being: that done, he lets me go:
And, with his head over his shoulder turn'd,"

Hamlet comes into Ophelia's room, his pants around his ankles. He knows Ophelia wants him, she'd fuck him if he were into it. Instead, he stays as far away from her as he can while still touching her, shakes and sighs (possibly blowing his load), then runs away.

Hamlet is a character whose pathos is derived from his inability to make an impossible choice. "To be or not to be", Kill Claudius or don't kill Claudius, marry Ophelia or cling to the childish idea that he can marry his mother.
He says "Get thee to a nunnery" because he can't bear it.

When exactly did Hamlet get Ophelia pregnant anyway? He's only been back from school for two months. Presumably a canny medieval Dane might be able to see pregnancy by now, if they'd fucked immediately upon his return, but Hamlet and Ophelia haven't really had the chance to talk about it.
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