What Hamlet can teach Roy Moore’s supporters
The controversy of Roy Moore’s meeting with a 14-year-old girl reminded me of the play, “Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.”
Hamlet had expressed some feelings for Ophelia, a young girl, but later he denied them. He suggested that Ophelia “should never have believed them.” And Hamlet said: “We (men) are arrant knaves all. Believe none of us.” As an English teacher, I asked students how old they thought Ophelia to be, and they said 14. Later in the play, it seemed that Hamlet was perhaps in his 30s. And so we see in a Shakespearean play a very young 14-year-old girl taken advantage of by an adult male.
As absurd as it seems, Shakespeare has convinced me that as least some men are not to be believed, no matter what they say — especially those who may seek to serve in the United States Senate.
Janet O’Keeffe
Columbia
This story was originally published November 23, 2017 at 6:30 PM with the headline "What Hamlet can teach Roy Moore’s supporters."