Turning Points Hamlet 22: Tricks I’ the World
Act IV, Scene V: A) Torn by her own guilt, Gertrude refuses to see a tormented Ophelia-until Horatio persuades her otherwise.
We’re treating both Ophelia and Horatio as secondary PCs. This beat represents an emotional victory for Ophelia, but is brought about by Horatio. As befits his rank in relation to Gertrude, Horatio uses the logic of the courtier to persuade her (making this a procedural victory for him) rather than leveraging an emotional advantage over the queen. Although Ophelia is offstage, the description given (by an unnamed walk-on character) of her behavior gives her a sort of presence in the scene. We can intuit that she’s seeking solace in her distress-an emotional goal rather than a practical one. For this reason we can score it with two up arrows-dramatic for Ophelia, procedural for Horatio.
B) In her famous flower speech, Ophelia insanely sings and babbles to Gertrude and then to Claudius.
This mad scene gives interpreters considerable leeway in choosing an intention for Ophelia. As its effect is to remind the king and queen of the guilt they ought to feel over the tragic events they’ve set in motion, let’s say that she’s subconsciously seeking a show of remorse from them. Whatever she wants, it’s not procedural in nature, so we can score it as a dramatic scene. She gets only bafflement from them, leading out on a dramatic down note.
C) Disturbed by what he’s seen, Claudius reveals to Gertrude that Laertes is on his way back to Elsinore, and that he plans to suborn the young man to his cause.
With Hamlet bound for England, we’re not sure what the procedural consequences for him will be, but we know that a new ally for Claudius is bad news in general. This fresh note of suspense is a procedural down note for our absent protagonist.
Entire map so far.