Hamlet and Ophelia have similar situations with very different endings. Both of their fathers are murdered by someone once trusted, and they both fall into grief. They diverge, however, in their decisions on suicide: Hamlet contemplates suicide but ultimately does not kill himself*, while Ophelia ultimately seems to kill herself or at least causes her own death through endangerment. Why the difference? Keep Reading

Literature is often heteronormative. When a man and woman interact, people insist that one is in love with the other. That’s right: Iago secretly loves Desdemona. Mercutio mocks Romeo’s love for Juliet because he wants to be with Juliet himself. Rosencrantz is pining for Ophelia. Meanwhile, when two characters of the same gender might be in love, most people will never even consider the possibility. What’s with the double standard?
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It’s commonly said that one of the flaws contributing to Hamlet’s downfall is his inability to act. Had he killed King Claudius early on, the conflict would’ve been quickly wrapped up, and things probably wouldn’t have spiraled out of control. Yet this “tragic flaw” is uncharacteristic for a Shakespeare play. In many other Shakespearean works, characters face the opposite problem: they don’t exercise enough caution, and they make decisions before they have all the facts. Keep Reading

Throughout my four years of high school, I’ve read thirty-six academic books for English class, so I ranked them from favorite to least favorite and reviewed them all. (This isn’t necessarily reflective of their objective literary merits, by the way. It’s just how much I enjoyed them.) Keep Reading