Is he mad or sane? Or just mad in craft, yet punished with sore distractions. Perhaps Hamlet is the victim--as we all at some time feel to be--of the world's sane view of insane perplexities. He is the man at war within himself; a traveler with a passport into strange, twilight regions of the soul. Whether or not Hamlet's suffering, and then insanity, is caused by his relations or by his own melancholy, Hamlet's struggle embodies the essential inwardness of human suffering that all can relate to.The concrete manifestations of Hamlet's misery are closely related. Not only has his father died, also his uncle is the murderer, his mother marries the uncle and is a likely accessory to the crime, and his true love lies to him. It is reasonable to suppose that Hamlet's state of mind becomes more and more unstable as he is consumed with thoughts of all of the sins against him. Eventually Hamlet loses all sense of life's significance. He states to his deceitful mother and uncle, "But I have that within which passes show These but the trappings and the suit of woe" (I, II, 85-86). Hamlet tries to articulate that his grief for his father's death and the prospect of his mother's unfaithfulness is almost inexpressible. He is left alone to bear the burden of suspicion toward the people he once loved. To a man bereft of a sense of purpose there is no possibility of action because it wouldn't have any meaning. No act but suicide seems rational.Yet Hamlet seeks to escape his life of woe when he is commanded by his father's spirit to a great act--revenge. Therein lies the unique chance for a sick soul to heal, to be cleansed and rested. But good cannot come of evil, and so the sickness of his soul only further infects his state of being. His mental disintegration, once proposed to be on purpose, continues uncontrolled. In the desert of his mind, void with the utter emptiness of the knowledge of death (his father's and the death of his faith in his mother) lies the supreme enemy to neurotic despair: romantic love. For romantic love assures power, it can create a sense of purpose, inspire heroism and beauty.
In Shakespeare’s play Hamlet the main character Hamlet experiences many different and puzzling emotions. He toys with the idea of killing himself and then plays with the idea of murdering others. Many people ask themselves who or what is this man and what is going on inside his head. The most common question asked about him is whether or not he is sane or insane. Although the door seems to swing both ways many see him as a sane person with one thought on his mind, and that is revenge. The first point of his sanity is while speaking with Horatio in the beginning of the play, secondly is the fact of his wittiness with the other characters and finally, his soliloquy.
Hamlet decides to portray an act of insanity, as part of his plan to seek revenge for his father's murder. As the play progresses, the reader may start to believe Hamlet’s “insane” act, but throughout the scenes, Hamlet shows that he knows right from wrong, good from bad, and his friends from his enemies. Hamlet shows that he still has power and control over his actions. As Elliot says “Hamlet madness is less than madness and more feigned”. Hamlet portrays a mad man, in order to be free from questioning, thus allowing him to have an easier path towards revenge.
The first and most important story of revenge is Hamlet wanting to kill his Uncle Claudius, after Claudius kills Hamlets father. Shakespeare begins the whole idea of revenge very early in the story when the ghost comes and tells Hamlet of what his uncle has done. The ghost first tells Hamlet how his uncle killed the king and then he tells Hamlet to take revenge he says in the play, “Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.” Hamlet responds with much eager to get revenge saying back to the ghost, “Haste me to know't, that I, with wings as swift As meditation or the thoughts of love, May sweep to my revenge.” It is funny how Hamlet says this because he first of says he wants to get swift revenge then the rest of the play after that Hamlet hesitates to kill Claudius. Shakespeare continues to push the theme of revenge as hamlet conti...
Hamlet, William Shakespeare's greatest tragedy, is a story of murder and deceit. The "trap" is a major motif in Hamlet because it is set by various characters, it is motivated by a variety of reasons and the results are often ironic.
She forces her family and friends away from her. Esther’s mother proves to have a negative effect on Esther’s well-being. In the beginning, Esther’s mother faces denial and refuses to acknowledge that Esther has a problem. When Esther refuses to come to Doctor Gordon’s shock treatments, Esther’s mother response is “I knew my baby wasn’t like that. Like those awful people. Those awful dead people at the hospital. I knew you’d decide to be all right again” (Plath 219). The context in which this is said, creates the impression that Esther’s mother believes that Esther has control over everything that she is going through. She believes that Esther could choose to be normal if she would like to. Moreover, the nurturing and care that her mom provides is conflictive to what Esther needs. Esther’s mom begins to treat her like an infant and tracks her every move, however that does not resolve any of the root causes that lead up to Esther’s attempted suicide. For these reasons, Esther begins to resent her mother. Further, Buddy’s comments on Esther’s state at the hospital reinforce the fact that she is not normal. He goes on to state that no one will marry Esther because she is defective since she has attempted suicide. “I wonder who you’ll marry now, Esther. Now you’ve been, here” (358). In another instance, Buddy question himself and his role in Esther’s attempted suicide. “Do you think there’s
Revenge is a recurring theme in Hamlet. Although Hamlet wants to avenge his father’s death, he is afraid of what would result from this. In the play Hamlet, Hamlet’s unwillingness to revenge appears throughout the text; Shakespeare exhibits this through Hamlet’s realization that revenge is not the right option, Hamlet‘s realization that revenge is the same as the crime which was already committed, and his understanding that to revenge is to become a “beast” and to not revenge is as well (Kastan 1).
Hamlet is Shakespeare’s most famous work of tragedy. Throughout the play the title character, Hamlet, tends to seek revenge for his father’s death. Shakespeare achieved his work in Hamlet through his brilliant depiction of the hero’s struggle with two opposing forces that hunt Hamlet throughout the play: moral integrity and the need to avenge his father’s murder. When Hamlet sets his mind to revenge his fathers’ death, he is faced with many challenges that delay him from committing murder to his uncle Claudius, who killed Hamlets’ father, the former king. During this delay, he harms others with his actions by acting irrationally, threatening Gertrude, his mother, and by killing Polonius which led into the madness and death of Ophelia. Hamlet ends up deceiving everyone around him, and also himself, by putting on a mask of insanity. In spite of the fact that Hamlet attempts to act morally in order to kill his uncle, he delays his revenge of his fathers’ death, harming others by his irritating actions. Despite Hamlets’ decisive character, he comes to a point where he realizes his tragic limits.
Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a tragic play about murder, betrayal, revenge, madness, and moral corruption. It touches upon philosophical ideas such as existentialism and relativism. Prince Hamlet frequently questions the meaning of life and the degrading of morals as he agonizes over his father’s murder, his mother’s incestuous infidelity, and what he should or shouldn’t do about it. At first, he is just depressed; still mourning the loss of his father as his mother marries his uncle. After he learns about the treachery of his uncle and the adultery of his mother, his already negative countenance declines further. He struggles with the task of killing Claudius, feeling burdened about having been asked to find a solution to a situation that was forced upon him.Death is something he struggles with as an abstract idea and as relative to himself. He is able to reconcile with the idea of death and reality eventually.
Greenwood represents the typical notion of what a woman should be and how she should act. Mrs. Greenwood is an example of everything Esther did not want to be. The reader is able to see Esther’s resentment fairly early in the book when Esther says that, “My own mother wasn't much help...She was always on to me to learn shorthand after college, so I'd have a practical skill as well as a college degree” (Plath 43). Mrs. Greenwood constantly encourages Esther to learn shorthand because it is one of the jobs women are expected to do during the time period. Esther would much rather be a journalist or a poet, but that did not fit the mold for what Mrs. Greenwood deemed acceptable. The relationship between a mother, who believes she knows best, and a daughter, who is attempting to find her own way, brilliantly portrays the tension and awkwardness of the time. What makes the situation so upsetting, is that Mrs. Greenwood is unaware of the consequences her “encouragements” are having on her daughter. This is not all her fault of course, because these roles and expectations are all she has ever known as well. Mrs. Greenwood’s definition of normal is based on what others have always told her. Esther’s mother sees normalcy as a choice, something that can be turned off and on. Even beyond that, she has narrowed the idea of normal to a vary narrow mindset. At one point, as her and Esther are
Wesley Autrey is an ordinary father who has two daughters and works as a construction worker, but something extraordinary happened on January 2, 2007. When
Hamlet’s mourning about the death of his father and the remarriage of his mother drives him to madness. This is the main characters inner tragedy that Shakespeare expresses in the play. First he considers suicide but the ghost of King Hamlet sends him on a different path, directing him to revenge his death. Shakespeare uses Hamlet to articulate his thoughts about life, death and revenge. Being a moral character he must decide if revenge is the right thing to do. Shakespeare relays many scenarios of reasoning to the audience about mankind His hero sets the wrongs on mankind right again.
Up until this point the kingdom of Denmark believed that old Hamlet had died of natural causes. As it was custom, prince Hamlet sought to avenge his father’s death. This leads Hamlet, the main character into a state of internal conflict as he agonises over what action and when to take it as to avenge his father’s death. Shakespeare’s play presents the reader with various forms of conflict which plague his characters. He explores these conflicts through the use of soliloquies, recurring motifs, structure and mirror plotting.
Hamlet is one of the most often-performed and studied plays in the English language. The story might have been merely a melodramatic play about murder and revenge, butWilliam Shakespeare imbued his drama with a sensitivity and reflectivity that still fascinates audiences four hundred years after it was first performed. Hamlet is no ordinary young man, raging at the death of his father and the hasty marriage of his mother and his uncle. Hamlet is cursed with an introspective nature; he cannot decide whether to turn his anger outward or in on himself. The audience sees a young man who would be happiest back at his university, contemplating remote philosophical matters of life and death. Instead, Hamlet is forced to engage death on a visceral level, as an unwelcome and unfathomable figure in his life. He cannot ignore thoughts of death, nor can he grieve and get on with his life, as most people do. He is a melancholy man, and he can see only darkness in his future—if, indeed, he is to have a future at all. Throughout the play, and particularly in his two most famous soliloquies, Hamlet struggles with the competing compulsions to avenge his father’s death or to embrace his own. Hamlet is a man caught in a moral dilemma, and his inability to reach a resolution condemns himself and nearly everyone close to him.
Like all Shakespearean tragedies, Hamlet’s ending is no different in end-result. Hamlet’s separation from society and his self-imposed confusion caused by over-thinking results in the unnecessary deaths of most of the major characters. In turn, Hamlet’s pre-occupation with factors inessential to his mission of revenge slows down his action. It is this internal struggle that illustrates the intensity and complexity of Shakespeare’s revenge tragedy, something that is often looked at from a psychological perspective.
Hamlet’s tragic flaw was shown to him in a dream by the ghost of his father. His father tells him that he was murdered by his uncle, Claudius. In this scene, the tragic flaw was transferred and manifested itself in Hamlet’s actions. His obsession with revenge and death is all he can think about. He needs to act quickly and decisively but finds himself procrastinating about what to do. In Act III, Hamlet holds the knife over the head of his uncle, Claudius, but cannot strike the fatal blow. Instead, he writes a play about the same scenario to study the reaction of Claudius as to a clue of his guilt. After he decides Claudius is guilty of murdering his father, he still relents from taking his revenge. He says, “Haste me to know ‘t, that I, with wings as swift As meditation or the thought of love May sweep to my revenge.