Austin Topper

Tragedies of Shakespeare

Journal Response

Hamlet is one of the key plays that created a parallel between the fictional narrative developed
by writers and our reality. As the play progresses, one can find familiarity in the series of
emotions displayed by a good number of the characters. As the play develops, Hamlet’s rotation
between anger disguised as madness and a sense of true madness that generally surrounds
Ophelia and his fathers death, can be comfortablely compared to the emotions one suffers in a
loss. In the case of Ophelia, her reaction to the grief, that originated from her fathers death,
differed from Hamlets in that she went into a state of madness, although unconfirmed,
committed suicide. One can notice the variety in how people deal with their grief, paralleling the
issues that surround our reality with grief. More specifically, I tend to distance myself from reality
when surrounded by grief. Although I did not react as severely to the losses I have experienced
as Hamlet and Ophelia did, it provided me with a new perspective that severely changed how I
functioned for the remainder of that year.
The creative response project enables me to become more intune with the emotions and
themes displayed in the play. It’s almost as if I am able to learn the specifics of the play's
themes by connecting them with the variety of extended techniques displayed throughout my
composition. I feel as though I grasped the harshness and sinister aspects of the “madness”
displayed by Hamlet, and the painfulness and sadness displayed by Ophelia. Additionally, the
creative response projected enabled me to highlight the variety in how the other characters
react to and feel about the issues the two characters face. Ultimately, I feel as though the
creative response project portrays the wide variety of context that exists throughout th entirety of
the play.