Hamlet's Depression

In Shakespeare's play Hamlet, the Eponymous struggles with his father’s death and is unable to move on, like everyone else, until he finds justice in the truth. His two friends, Guildenstern and Rosencrantz were sent to spy on young Hamlet by his mother, Queen Gertrude, and his uncle and newly dad, King Claudius. In hopes the friends could help the worried parents understand why Hamlet is so sad the two talk to Hamlet and attempt to resolve this issue. Instead Hamlet, like usual, outwits his parents and friends and concludes that his two supposedly “friends” have been spying on him. Hamlet’s monologue, although does not tell the full truth is still not a lie about how Hamlet feels and why his depression has taken over his whole life. Hamlet

The joy he once felt towards the world has filled up with negativity, he explains “I know not, lost all my mirth”. Ever since his dad has died he lost all enjoyment from the world. He describes the world as being “this brave o’erhanging firmament” yet contradicts this thought by admitting he sees the world filled with “pestilent congregation of vapors”. He knows and understand the world is beauty but since his father's death the world has been cloaked by evil. Since Hamlet is now facing a lack of pleasure drawn from life, we can conclude that before his father’s death Hamlet was a young happy man who viewed the world optimistically. Earlier in the play Hamlet only describes his father as being nearly perfect, comparing him to Hercules and Hyperion. He saw nothing evil inside of his father at that time. Later in the play we Hamlet learns his father is stuck in purgatory, between heaven and hell, indicating that his father was not sinful Godlike man that Hamlet had believed before. His father's death drew Hamlet to the realization that the world around him is not

Unfortunately, Hamlet is able to describe human beings as “paragon of animals”, choosing to understand that human beings are advanced beautiful creatures. The mechanics and brains of human beings are so advanced they are unexplainable to some level. Hamlet understands this notion of humans, yet, because of his experience of his father's death he has made the conscience decision for remove all good thought of humans from the mind and see them as in the end, like his father, “quintessence of dust”. His father’s death has made Hamlet see that in the end, all humans die and their bodies all eventually disintegrated to dust. Similar to the philosopher Schopenhauer Hamlet now sees that there is no point to living life and that no matter how much power, his father being a King, you still are forgotten and will turn to dust to be