Monday 10 December 2012

Why does Hamlet repeatedly say to Ophelia, "Get thee to a nunnery"?

says to ,
"Get thee to a nunnery" so that she will stop enabling people, like her father, , to
spy onand undermine him:

HAMLET:

Get
thee to a nunnery! Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? ... Go thy ways to a nunnery.
Where's your father?... If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry: be thou as
chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery. Go,
farewell. Or if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough what monsters
you make of them. To a nunnery, go; and quickly too. Farewell.


And Hamlet has also had it with women, in general, and his mother, Queen ,
specifically. Nuns have none of the traits he so reviles in other individuals of their
gender:

HAMLET:

I have heard of your
paintings too, well enough. God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another. You
jig, you amble, and you lisp; and nickname God's creatures and make your wantonness your
ignorance. Go to, I'll no more on't! it hath made me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages.
Those that are married alreadyall but oneshall live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a
nunnery, go.

Hamlet wants honesty and loving kindness
from women, yet gets none of it from the women in his life. Better for them and him that they
make their way to a nunnery.

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