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2.     Similarities are an important part of being a foil. One similarity that Hamlet and Ophelia share are that they both are children of controlling parents. [SV - 1] Hamlet's father, who is murdered[,] comes back as a ghost to tell him who his murderer is. This news is his father's way of controlling him from the grave. Hamlet's mother and stepfather are also controlling him by presuading [persuading] Hamlet not to go to Wittenburg. Men in those days went away to get an education. There was no need for Hamlet to do so because he was a prince. [As a Prince, he might have been even more likely to go abroad for his education.] Ophelia is controlled by her father also. She tells him how Hamlet has tried many times to express his affections for her. Ophelia's father does not believe Hamlet is sincere and orders her to stay away from him. Ophelia obeys her father[']s wishes. Women were expected to do as they were told and believed what they were told to be true.

3.      Another similarity between Hamlet and Ophelia is their [the] feelings they have for each other. In the beginning of the play[,] we are lead [led] to believe that Hamlet loves Ophelia. This frightens Ophelia, but that does not mean she does not have feelings for him also. It is her father who discourages [encourages] her to suppress any feelings she may have then. Later in the play Ophelia confesses her love for Hamlet[,] and he then hides his feelings and denies that he loved her. He suggests that she goes [go] to a nunnery. This makes Ophelia feel worthless and not wanted.

4.     Finally the reactions that the characters have to their fathers' deaths are also similar. When Hamlet learns that his father was murdered and that his stepfather is the killer[,] it is more than he can handle. This news drives him mad as [well as] Ophelia's news of her father's death does to her. It is how the two characters deal with their madness that leads to the differences between them.

5.     Hamlet[']s madness drove him to seek revenge on anyone who seemed to be trying to trick him or get in his way. His madness and need for revenge led Hamlet to the accidental killing of Ophelia's [sic] father. He also wanted to make his stepfather pay for killing his father and convince his mother that she should be mourning her first husband's death. Ophelia[']s madness was directed at herself. [Nice point] Without her father she was left with nothing. She felt that her chances with Hamlet were gone. Back then women without a male did not have any reasons for living. [I wouldn't go that far.] So Ophelia fell into a brook and drowned. Again, [that] they both took a life to rid themselves of the madness are [is] another similarity. [Another nice point.]

6.     The final way a character can be a foil for another character is that they are there to talk to the important character. This helps the character show his or her feelings about conflicts in the play. In Act 3, Scene 1 (p. 672-677) [Citation] Ophelia is used by the king, Gertrude, and Polonius to set up Hamlet to see if his madness is because of Ophelia's rejection of his love. [Nice point! They use Ophelia precisely as a foil to see what Hamlet will say!] In their discussion Hamlet questions who Ophelia is. He asks "Are you honest?" "Are you fair?" These questions support the major conflict of the play that is who's there (p.629)? [sic] This conflict can also be stated as appearance verse's [versus]  reality. Another scene between Hamlet and Ophelia that helps the audience understand Hamlet[']s feelings is in Act 3 Scene 2. [SV Logic -- The scene IS Act 3, Scene 2, not "in" Act 3, Scene 2.] Hamlet acts very merry[,] which Ophelia questions. This scene reveals how Hamlet sees his mother. He feels she is too happy for the amount of time it has been since his father's death. Hamlet thinks Gertrude should be mourning because it has only been two months since his death. [Nice connection]

7.     So we can see that Hamlet without Ophelia would leave Hamlet without a heart. [Very nice!] Hamlet needs someone like him to keep the audience interested in giving Hamlet a chance to get over his madness and give into  [in to] his heart. [Which] in [In] the end[,] when Ophelia takes her life, Hamlet does just that. [SS-1] He again admits to his love for her and apologizes to her brother Laertes for the death of their father. At the end of the play Hamlet's madness is also brought to an end, and he joins Ophelia again. [A Romantic conclusion, but I have to admit that it is true.]
 
     This is one of those essays that demonstrate the KISS principle -- Keep It Simple because the instructor is Stupid. This essay probably should have received an A. (I can always find minor adjustments to make in the grading sheets to move a grade up or down a letter.) The problem was that the essay was graded in the context of an entire set. If you look at a lot of the other essays in this set, especially those with lower grades, you will find many with a thesis sentence comparable to the thesis of this paper -- "... the character Ophelia is a foil to Hamlet." The papers that got better grades almost all had a thesis which suggested not simply that X is a foil to Y, but that the foil(s) in some specific way affect(s) the meaning of the play. Thus, when I was reading (and grading) this essay, I initially assumed that it was like all those weaker papers.
     This writer shows the importance of Ophelia, brilliantly, but primarily in the concluding paragraph. In the context of a set of essays that have to be read quickly and graded (Students want their papers back.), a thesis at the end is not helpful. I did not have time to go back and reread to see how well the paper supports its thesis.  Let me try to put it another way. In reading and grading essays, most instructors probably do what I do. As I begin to read, I begin to carry a grade in my head. (I had a graduate professor who claimed that he could determine the grade from the first paragraph -- he would have really messed this one up.) In reading the first paragraph of this essay, I started with a C. (Compare the first paragraph to the first paragraphs of most of the essays that got C's.)
     As I kept reading, the grade kept moving up, but it wasn't helped by the grammatical errors. It's not just that they are grammatical errors, but that they tend to confuse a reader. It's the confusion that causes the real problem. In class we have talked (or will talk) about short-term memory and how the brain processes language. George Miller suggested that STM has seven slots in which to hold and process incoming information. Those slots are used to hold the thesis, organization, topic sentences, etc., in addition to the individual incoming words. Grammatical errors force the reader to use valuable STM space to figure out what is going on within a sentence. As the reader does that, it becomes difficult to keep the thesis, organization, etc. in clear focus. Hence the drag that grammatical errors put on grades. [Yes, I know -- a fragment -- intentional.] By the time I got to the end of this essay, and to its great conclusion, the initial C had moved to a B, but I was still too confused to be willing to give it an A. I didn't see how good this essay really is until I reread it, slowly, as I prepared it for this web site. Remember -- KISS!

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