🌹The Rose & Skull ☠️
Response 4B
Topics: ❧ Compare Hamlet’s play-acting to that of one or more of the characters in The Stronger and Roman Fever. ❧ In 3.4. 205-13, Hamlet uses the phrases adder’s fang’d, hung with his own petard, delve one yard below their mines, and in one line two crafts directly meet. Take one of these phrases (or a different phrase from 205-13) and apply it to The Stronger and/or Roman Fever.
In One Line Two Crafts Directly Meet — Delve One Yard Below Their Mines —Play-Acting — Adders Fang’d — Hoist With His Own Petard
As with last week, this week’s responses aren’t in any particular order and aren’t evaluated in any way. I have, however, tried to post the better responses and to avoid repetition. If your response isn’t posted, that may be because it’s similar to another response.
I’ve also posted responses that differ from each other. If you see something you disagree with below, try to use it to strengthen your own argument.
One of the most effective strategies when it comes to arguing your own interpretation is to deal with another interpretation or counter-argument. The following type of sentence can be quite effective: While it can be argued that Hamlet is …, it makes even more sense to see that Hamlet is …, given that …. .
It’s better to deal with strong counter-arguments than to avoid them. If you don’t deal with them, your reader may think about them after you’ve made your argument, at which point you don’t have the opportunity to show why the counter-argument isn’t effective. It’s a better idea to pre-empt strong counter-arguments by facing them directly and to show why your argument subsumes, overrides, or supersedes them.
One caveat: literary interpretation isn’t quite like a courtroom in which you try to defeat the opposing counsel. There’s far more space for ambiguity or different interpretations. The trick is to see what is a strong counter-argument (that is, what seriously weakens your point) and what is just another way of looking at the situation.
The ability to read insightfully, to evaluate differences, and to argue your own case is part of the critical thinking I discuss in the Introduction. It also has many applications outside the field of literature — in diplomacy, office politics, personal relationships, etc. To put it very simply, imagine living with someone who is always right and who never considers your point of view…
In One Line Two Crafts Directly Meet
Hamlet uses the phrase "In one line two crafts directly meet" when speaking about Guildenstern and Rosencrantz - explaining how he will kill two birds with one stone. It parallels the same motives that Mrs. Slade had when she was devising the plan to see if Mrs. Ainsley was having affection for her fiancé. When she came back from the Coliseum with the sickness, not only did she confirm the feelings Mrs. Ainsley had, but she also proved that her “friend” was willing to have an affair with the man that she was planning on marrying.
The phrase "in one line two crafts directly meet" correlates to both women in Roman fever. Both characters met earlier on in the story and had feelings but due to different circumstances, they were apart from each other for a long time. Eventually, throughout their lifetime both ladies made their way back to each other. The " one-line" that I refer to is fate, this is what brings them back at the end for them to "directly meet" again.
Delve One Yard Below Their Mines
When Hamlet says, "delve one yard below their mines", this is interpreted as knowing a trap exists and being able to avoid it; this understanding can be applied to The Stronger, specifically with the way Mrs. X operates. The key difference between characters is that Hamlet is truly avoiding traps – or manipulations by his two 'friends' – while Mrs. X only believes she is avoiding traps. Mrs. X believes wholeheartedly that Miss Y. had every intention of stealing Mrs. X's husband. Mrs. X then perceives 'traps' that have not ever existed and believes to be avoiding them.
In Hamlet, he speaks on how he will “delve one yard below their mines, and blow them at the moon.” His phrase can be connected to how Mrs. X , from “the Stronger,” felt when she was speaking to Ms. Y at the end of their conversation. Mrs. X believed that Ms. Y largely affected her personal life to the point that she felt “everything was forced by [Ms. X].” This ultimately led to Mrs. X blowing up with strong feelings of blame and envy toward Ms. Y.
Play-Acting
Hamlet and ‘The Stronger’ play-acting were similar but also very different. For instance, Hamlet is occasionally hesitant and indecisive while other times very bitter, full of hate, even cynical at times or melancholic. The play-acting in Hamlet had lots of deceptiveness and was very pervasive since there were authorities who could make people believe stuff that isn’t real and say that whoever goes against is mentally unstable. ‘The Stronger’ has pain, sadness, hatred, weakness, and jealousy. Play-acting in ‘The Stronger’ comes in when Mrs X tells Ms Y hurtful things to eat her out, is nice, then horribly mean again.
Both Characters have an accusatory nature to their acting in these particular scenes. Hamlet continues to passively suggest that he knows the truth, despite how obvious the truth is. Both Hamlet and Mrs. Slade exude a certain overbearing nature through their acting. They both insist on knowing the truth but refuse to directly state it, preferring that the other person admits before they must announce what they know. Hamlet and Mrs. Slade control their scenes, remaining the center of attention despite the even dialogue between characters. They portray a level of power greater than all the others involved as they are stubborn and persistent in their knowledge. They know what they want to hear but refuse to state it themselves. They Hold ambition and desire out of the context of the play until a desired time in dialogue is reached and manipulate the dialogue in order to maintain the upper hand.
In My wit’s diseased and Roman Fever, both Hamlet and Mrs. Slade cleverly use metaphors to fool characters they know to be dishonest. Hamlet asks Guildenstern how he can play others so easily, but cannot play a pipe. He wants Guildenstern to know that he is not so easily played. He then compares the shape of a cloud to a weasel, and compares this to Polonius. Mrs. Slade tells the story of Mrs. Ansley’s great aunt to Mrs. Ansley, to subtly compare it to her and Mrs. Ansley’s own situation; the story tells of how two women loved the same man. (100 words)
Hamlet can be compared to Mrs. Slade. Mrs. Slade is more sane than the clearly crazy Hamlet. However both characters show a different face then their message. Mrs. Slade shows little sign of emotion until the near end when revealing her ability to outwit Mrs. Ansley. Similar can be said for Hamlet as he appears a mad man without control but is really trying to say, I know Claudius killed my dad and you better watch out for me. When Hamlets says “hoist with his own petard” he is saying that Claudius is going to be the victim of his own actions. Mrs. Slade does the same but on a psychological level.
Two characters Hamlet and MRS. X acts very similar in terms of change in state of mind. Hamlet first starts his conversations with sarcasms which indirectly criticize his friends that are betrayed, then he becomes straightforward to express his anger with a phrase “Were you not sent for?”. Correspondingly, “How I hate you” also reflects the change in MRS. X’s state of mind and reveals how she suddenly stopped criticizing in a roundabout way, yet clear and strong way. Both situations show the exposing point of their anger by providing phrases which directly means what they meant.
Both Guildenstern (and Rosencrantz) and Mrs. Ansley are manipulative, but though Guildenstern is manipulative, his incapability of hiding his intentions caused him to fail at manipulating Hamlet while Ansley is successful at manipulating Mrs. Slade by acting clueless and submissive in the beginning. Moreover, Guildenstern’s obvious manipulations were easily seen through Hamlet, which therefore caused him to admit being a spy and eventually led to his demise while on the contrary, Mrs. Ansley let Mrs.Slade to take control over their intense argument and to show off her cleverness for a while before extinguishing it all by revealing her startling secret at the end.
Adders Fang’d
Both Hamlet and The Stronger use toxic “animalistic” references towards their enemies to seek retaliation. “Adders fang’d” refers to a poisonous snake which Hamlet calls his “so called” friends being untrustworthy towards him. This venom suggests lies and deceit that one so dear to him could be so crooked. In The Stronger, Mrs. X uses terms to call her friend now turned enemy a “monster crab” and a “cat in a mouse-house” catching her victim with her claws as she outwaits it. Both of these friendships have become toxic which end up with betrayal and disloyalty to one another. (99 words)
Hamlet refers to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as “adder’s fang’d” which means venomous snakes. This is used to describe them as people who will feed lies to others, will purposely play a role in your downfall from behind a closed curtain and are deceitful. Even nowadays in society we use the shorter term which holds the generally the same meaning; snakes. In “Roman Fever” Alida Slide is the character who stands out as far as being “adder’s fang’d”. This is because she crosses lines to achieve what she wants but still is envious of Grace Ansley. She does whatever it takes to put Grace down, from marrying the man Grace wanted, exposing his letter, she even targets Grace’s daughter. These are all characteristics of a toxic person which “adder’s fang’d” refers to.
Both Hamlet and Mrs. X succeed in removing whom they see as a threat to their happiness. After killing Polonius, Hamlet proclaims, “Indeed this counsellor, Is now most still, most secret and most grave, Who was in life a foolish prating knave.” While Mrs. X does not kill Miss Y, she does confront her. Both Hamlet and Mrs. X believe their targets to be foolish in their manipulative and secretive ways, and to have gotten the better of their rivals through their own scheming, and ultimately, in Hamlet’s case, through murder.
Hoist With His Own Petard
Hamlet’s phrase ‘hoist with his own petard’ works aptly in Roman Fever as a metaphor for Alida Slade’s plan. When, out of jealousy, Alida devised a plan to send Grace into the cold night only to be stood up, she thought she had delivered a critical blow, as had Claudius when he sent the letters with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Though Claudius’ plan backfired fairly quickly, it wasn’t until years later that Alida realized she had been “hoist with [her] own petard”, because the plan meant to hurt Grace gave an opportunity for her to have an affair with Alida’s then-fiance. (100 words)
Mrs. Slade’s Letter Bomb. Hoist with his own petard, this quote from Hamlet is reminiscent of the actions in Roman Fever. When Mrs. Slade pretends to be her fiancé to write a letter to Mrs. Ainsley, she is blowing herself up with her own petard as she was not expecting Mrs. Ainsley to answer the letter. Mrs. Slade hoisted herself with her own petard by sending that letter as it results in Mrs. Ainsley conceiving her daughter Barbara with Mrs. Slades fiancé.
Similar to Hamlet's quote, "hung with his own petard," Mrs. Slade's fake letter to Mrs. Ansley has costed her fiancé, Delphin Slade. As Mrs. Ansley sent a reply to the fake letter, Delphin found out and sent back a response about his true feeling. And from their forbidden love, Mrs. Ansley and Delphin have a daughter that shocked and chagrined Mrs. Slade of her own evil deeds. It is ironic that instead of separating Mrs. Ansley and Delphin to be with each other, Mrs. Slade has tasted her own medicine.
Hamlet’s phrase “hoist with his own petard” is almost an exact description of Mrs. Slade’s action towards Mrs. Ansley’s love for Delphine and how it backfired on her. The letter is meant to hurt Mrs. Ansley, it is the petard to keep her away from Delphine. However, because he does show up, the letter ends up being the petard and Mrs. Slade is the aforementioned engineer who becomes hurt.
Mrs. Slade, like Guildenstern and Rosencrantz, was the victim of being the “engineer [h]oist with [their] own petard”. Like when Hamlet’s treacherous friends were bringing Hamlet to England with a secret letter containing orders to murder him, Mrs. Slade wrote a fake love letter to Mrs. Ansley, falsely signed as from her fiancé Delphin, to get her sick. Though it’s ambiguous as to whether Mrs. Ansley was aware of Mrs. Slade’s conspiracy when she wrote back to Delphin, it nevertheless incited the affair Mrs. Slade was trying to avoid through her actions in the first place.
"hoist with his own petard" is an ironic term used by Hamlet as its meaning is the bomb creator is blown up by their own bomb. This relates to "The Stronger" as it contains tons of irony in it like Hamlets phrase. One main point of irony in "The Stronger" is how there is only one speaker and therefore seems to be the strongest, but it is the silent one. This type of irony is like our perception of Hamlet's phrase because we see the bomb maker as the least likely person to be blown up by their own bomb. (100 words)
Mrs. Slade was clearly “hung” with her own “petard” in Roman Fever as she thought herself to be more “clever” than the average person. She planted a mine field of deceit for her “prudent” friend to tread, thinking herself a “brilliant” success when the “delicate throat” of young Grace was ravaged with “illness”. Alida thought herself victorious, and her enemy thoroughly “blown” to “ashes”. Conclusively, the “joke” blew up beneath Mrs. Slade’s feet as her “blind rage” was indeed the fatal flaw in her scheme. The final bomb was Mrs. Ansley’s to throw, which Mr. Slade had impregnated in her womb. (102)
The phrase "Hoist with his own petard" is an apt representation of the poetic justice on Mrs. Slade. What begins with Alida’s impersonation as Delphin in the letter written to Grace, results in the conceiving of the love child of Delphin and Grace; thus, entrapping Alida in her own web of wrath and rage. While retreading their past, Alida reveals the truth behind Delphin's letter in an attempt to shatter Grace’s memory of him, but her deviousness leads to a revelation; one that would cause her the same agony and suffering which she initially envisioned for Grace.
The phrase used by Hamlet, hung by his own petard, is one that can be applied to the central theme of Roman Fever. Hamlet speaks of letting Claudius’ own plot to have Hamlet killed blow up in his face. As we see in Roman Fever, Slade’s own plot ends up backfiring on her when her ruse involving her fiancé and Ansley ended up resulting in her fiancé fathering Ansley’s daughter. It was her own meddling and attempt to humiliate Ansley that led to her downfall. Had she done nothing, the ultimate outcome never would have occurred.
🌹☠️