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Essay comparing hamlet and laertes
Revenge motif in Hamlet
Revenge motif in Hamlet
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In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, the theme of revenge is very palpable as the reader examines the characters of Hamlet himself, as well as Laertes, son of Polonius, and Fortinbras, prince of Norway and son of the late King Fortinbras. Each of these young characters felt the need to avenge the deaths of their fathers who they felt were untimely killed at the bloody hands of their murderers. However, the way each chose to go about this varies greatly and gives insight into their characters and how they progress throughout the play. Hamlet, Laertes and Fortinbras are similar in the fact that each had love, or at least respect their fathers. Enough to make an attempt to wreak revenge upon their fathers murderers at the risk of their own reputation, freedom, and souls. Each characters father had a substantially high social class in their respective countries, which in turn gives them high social class as well. With Hamlet and Fortinbras as sons of kings and Laertes as the son of an aristocrat of high regard in the Danish court, all had a lot to loose if unsuccessful in their ploy. Each of the sons believed that the killers had dishonored their fathers as well as themselves. Each acts in a way that they consider to be an attempt at restoring it to the family, as honor was a significant thing to uphold in this day. Although similar in age, class and ambition to destroy their fathers killers, Hamlet, Laertes and Fortinbras each have characteristics that make them different from each other and show how each acted unlike the others when carrying out their plans. Hamlet seems to be the one who lets things dwell in his mind before taking any action or making an attempt at trying to get on with things. He shows this after the death of his father when he remains in morning and a depressed state for three months without trying to get on with his life. Laertes seems to be the more quick minded of the three as he makes hasty judgements about Hamlet and is quick to force his opinion upon his sister, Ophelia about his fears for her if she stays in the relationship. “For Hamlet and the trifling of his favor, hold it a fashion and a toy in blood, a violet in the youth of primy nature, forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting, the perfume and suppliance of a minute—No more.
When one thinks of the play Hamlet, one word that comes to mind is tragedy. This play is surrounded by a whole group of people who only seem to find misfortune in every step they take. This essay will explain how Hamlet and Laertes are similar to one another. Both men seem to act on impulses to get their way, both men share a love for Ophelia and they both relate to their families in the same way.
...Hamlet is slow to action, but quite rational. Laertes is quick to action, but irrational. Fortinbras however, is both quick and rational. Shakespeare uses Laertes and Fortinbras to show both how Hamlet could have gone about his situation differently, but also what characteristics he finds as admirable and exemplary. In the end of the play, both Hamlet and Laertes are dead. Laertes dies because he was irrational and Hamlet because he was slow to act. Only when rational thought was combined with quick action did any character live to tell about it. While Fortinbras becomes the King of Denmark and accomplishes his goals, it must not be overlooked that both Hamlet and Laertes avenged their father's murders. Shakespeare shows through these foils that while he admires both rational thinking and quick action, it is the combination of the two virtues which leads to success.
In the play “Hamlet”, Shakespeare uses two characters, Hamlet and Laertes, to develop a recurring theme of revenge. These two characters experience similar emotional suffering, as both of their fathers were murdered. One idea that made the readers question the mentality of these two characters was their motives. Hamlet was hesitant throughout the entire interval of the play to get revenge; which created confusion because Hamlet craved nothing more than revenge, yet he continued putting it off. In contrast to Hamlet’s tentativeness, Laertes, a man who initially did not know who killed his father, was willing to take his anger out on nearly anyone. Throughout the play, Laertes is seen as one who is eager to get to action, a quality often found in heroes, whereas Hamlet, the actual hero of the play, lacks this quality and hesitates to get revenge. In an attempt to portray the difficulty of revenge, Shakespeare uses the different ways Hamlet and Laertes see to their problems.
Hamlet showed much love for his father and was devastated when he is murdered. Hamlet expresses suicidal thoughts in the first acts of the play due to his father’s death. Hamlet feels that he must avenge his father, but is unable to do so because he is not confident in being successful. Laertes shows very little to no emotion over the demise of his father, but is quick to take revenge. It is quite obvious that while Hamlet truly admires his father, Laertes is more concerned with the impressing the family, being “the hero” by avenging his father’s death than with the realization that his father is deceased. Therefore, Hamlet seems to be more exocentric, while Laertes, only caring for his gains, appears to be more
The parallels between Fortinbras , Laertes, and Hamlet demonstrate Hamlet’s intelligence. When their fathers are killed, Fortinbras and Laertes both rush to get revenge without thinking of the consequences. When the war Fortinbras wants to start with Denmark is subverted, he goes to war with Poland over “a little patch of ground [t]hat hath in it no profit but a name” (4.4.18-19). He is so blinded by a thirst for revenge that he rushes into an unnecessary war. Similarly, Laertes does not think about his actions when he starts a rebellion. He is the son of the king’s advisor, yet he tries to overthrow him before he even bothers to ask who really killed his father. On the contrary, Hamlet tries very hard to deduce the nature of his father’s death before he rushes into action. When the ghost approaches him, he asks it if it is a “spirit of health or goblin damned” (1.4.40). He is intelligent enough to know that he should not trust it, even if it tells him what he wants to hear. Upon hearing that his father was murdered by Claudius, he starts coming up with a cunning plan to “catch the conscience of the king” (2.2.617). These parallel situations show Hamlet’s intellect, which he uses to escape having to make unpleasant
Revenge has been a dreadful human trait for all of eternity, even throughout the Bible. In William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, both the characters of Fortinbras and Hamlet are similar in the ideal of seeking revenge, but contrast on how they individually handle revenge. Fortinbras’ willingness to go to the ends of the Earth for the revenge of his father’s death is an enormous difference than Hamlet’s indecisiveness to act upon the murder of his father. These two characters are similar in their situations, but contrast with the way they handle the situations they are placed in.
Both Hamlet and Fortinbras’ fathers were killed and their uncles then took their thrones. They are both noble princes seeking to avenge their fathers deaths. They go about their revenge in completely different manners, even though they share a common goal. They are very similar and have a lot of traits in common but, various differences put emphasis on Hamlet’s weaknesses. The difference is in their motives, Hamlet wants to kill Claudius for personal revenge without any greater reason. Fortinbras works to restore honor to Norway in his father’s name. Even though Hamlet is acting for personal reasons; he is bound by his conscience and hesitates to kill Claudius. Even when he has an opportunity in the chapel, he does not kill him. He tells himself that if he died right then, he would be sent to heaven rather than hell because he had repented all of his sins. Since Fortinbras is not seeking personal revenge, he is not slowed by moral dilemmas. Hamlet struggles with his anger throughout the story and finds difficulty in killing, even those who are guilty. He becomes jealous of Fortinbras’ ability to lead his country and his ability to control his anger when he was retaking his country's lost land. Hamlet is jealous of his ability to have no problem in killing the innocent. Hamlet wishes to be Fortinbras and because of this, it is easy to pick out Hamlet’s fatal flaws, his indecisiveness and inability to act on his
In spite of the fact that Hamlet and Laertes both want the same thing, Laertes is more engrossed in the fact of taking action, while Hamlet carefully strategizes his course of action in order to perform his plan triumphly. Both Hamlet and Laertes’s demise is found out at the end when they both end up dead by one another’s hand. Laertes and Hamlet both end up being successful because they each avenged the murder of their
"Laertes is a mirror to Hamlet. Shakespeare has made them similar in many aspects to provide a greater base for comparison when avenging their respective fathers' deaths" (Nardo, 90). Both Hamlet and Laertes love Ophelia in different ways. Hamlet wishes Ophelia to become his wife, Laertes loves Ophelia as a sister. Hamlet is a scholar at Wittenberg; Laertes is also a scholar at France. Both were brought up under this royal family of Denmark. And both are admired for their swordsmenship. But most important of all, both of them loved and respected their fathers greatly, and showed great devotion when plotting to avenge their fathers' deaths.
Each man deals with grief in extremely distinct manners, when looking at Laertes in comparison to Hamlet you can swiftly see their great contrast to one another. Hamlet would rather create reason before madness; he is the type to use his brain before his fist. Whereas Laertes is always caught up in his anger that he sees no means to absolve the actions of others.
In William Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet, Laertes, Fortinbras and Hamlet find themselves in similar situations. While Hamlet waits for the right time to avenge his father's death, Laertes learns of his father's death and immediately wants vengeance, and Fortinbras awaits his chance to recapture land that used to belong to his father. Laertes and Fortinbras go about accomplishing their desires quite differently than Hamlet. While Hamlet acts slowly and carefully, Laertes and Fortinbras seek their revenge with haste. Although Laertes and Fortinbras are minor characters, Shakespeare molds them in order to contrast with Hamlet. Fortinbras and, to a greater extent, Laertes act as foils to Hamlet with respect to their motives for revenge, execution of their plans and behavior while carrying out their plans.
Hamlet completely revolves around revenge. Revenge is getting payback for something that affected oneself. Hamlet wants revenge of Claudius for killing his father, and Laertes wants to seek revenge on hamlet for killing his. Revenge in the story pushes the plot forward as Hamlet tries to kill Claudius throughout the whole novel, which causes many tragedies. Vengeance causes the characters in Hamlet to act blindly through anger and emotion, rather than through reason leading to the massacre of the entire family.
Laertes: wants to revenge against Hamlet after killing both his father (Polonius), and sister (Ophelia).
In Hamlet, Shakespeare uses exact retribution as a noteworthy subject present all through the work. Reprisal assumes an essential part in the improvement of Hamlet, Laertes, and Fortinbras. Each of the three men are looking for reprisal for the homicide of their fathers. A baffling apparition cause’s hamlet to vindicate the demise of his dad. The killing of Laertes’ dad makes him undauntedly take retaliation on his dad’s killer. Fortinbras seeks revenge on Denmark for his dad’s death, even though king Hamlet was responsible for the death of King Fortinbras. Shakespeare uses the responses of these three men to investigate the subject of retribution in Hamlet.
The murder of Polonius by Hamlet brings gives yet another son a motif to seek revenge on his father’s murderer. Polonius like Hamlet lets his feelings govern his decisions and does away with his reason. Laertes decides to avenge his fathers death in a dual with Hamlet in which both get poisoned by the same sword and are killed. Their rage and anger led influenced their decisions up until this point and even though both managed to avenge their father’s deaths, they both ended facing the consequence which is death. Fortinbras having obeyed his uncle and holding back his rage and anger saved himself from the consequences of revenge.