Shakespeare's time period and individuals of today alike were, and still very much intrigued by many aspects of the play. Shakespeare was able to miraculously capture the audience, despite the common folk’s ignorance. The play is often referred to as The Tragedy of Hamlet. And while Hamlet does exhibit some characteristics of a tragic hero he lacks the most fundamental of all; a tragic flaw and the element of free choice. Throughout the play, Hamlet is very much plagued on the subject of morality. Natural law essentially governs the human nature and it constitutes what is right from wrong. For example, murder is a violation of natural law. This due to the fact that there is no justifiable reason to kill. Even from the beginning, Shakespeare provides a multitude of hints showcasing tensions within the state …show more content…
He says, “ O that this too too solid flesh would melt,/ Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!/ Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d/ His canon ’gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!/ How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable/ Seem to me all the uses of this world!”(I.ii.129-134). Hamlet undergoes a dramatic transformation from this hyperbolic soliloquy to arguably self-actualizing. In many instances, there is evidence of him reaching a “superposition” in the universal. The most infamous declaration is when he says, “What a piece of work is a man! How noble/ In reason, how infinite in faculty! In form and/ Moving how express and admirable! In action how/ Like an angel, in apprehension how like a god!/ The beauty of the world. The paragon of animals. And/ Yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man/ Delights not me. No, nor woman neither…”(II.ii.285-291). Hamlet admits the intellect and understanding of human beings, he proclaims that they are nothing but dust. This is a direct cause of everyone around him attempting to manipulate and suppress his emotions of his
People all around the world are familiar with the “To be or not to be” speech. Although some might not realize it is a speech by Hamlet, they do realize how powerful those lines are. Those lines show the mark of a great philosopher, and this is precisely what Hamlet is. Because Hamlet is such a fantastic philosopher at the start of the play, it leads him to what some believe is his downfall. The fact that perhaps he thinks too much on the people and incidents surrounding him is really what pulls him down. He spends an excessive amount of his day thinking about every aspect of every event.
In Act 1 Scene 2 hamlet is left alone vulnerable to his sensitivity making it seen when he says, “O, that this too too solid flesh would melt Thaw and resolve itself into dew! Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter! O God! God! How weary, stale Flat and unprofitable, Seem to me all the uses of this world!”. At this point he is wishing his “flesh” to “melt” and dissolve into dew which incorporates towards his agony of his father’s death and the effect brought to him of the remarriage of his mother to his uncle. His thoughts here are suicidal and its noticeable he’s entering a point where he’s emotionally unstable. Excellence wouldn’t come from a person who let emotions behold most of his willing self, he’s let the events compromise the person he once was before the death, transforming him into a human being with a melancholy
Hamlet is inhuman. He has seen through humanity. And this inhuman cynicism, however justifiable in this case, on the plane of causality and individual responsibility, is a deadly and venomous thing. Instinctively the creatures of earth-Laertes, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, league themselves with Claudius: they are of his kind. They sever themselves from Hamlet. Laertes sternly warns Ophelia against her intimacy with Hamlet, so does Polonius. They are, in fact, all leagued against him, they are puzzled by him or fear him: he has no friend except Horatio, and Horatio, after the ghost scenes, becomes a queer shadowy character who rarely gets beyond "E'en so, my lord," "My lord-," and suchlike phrases. The other persons are firmly drawn, in the round, creatures of flesh and blood. But Hamlet is not of flesh and blood, he is a spirit of penetrating intellect and cynicism and misery, without faith in himself or anyone else, murdering his love of Ophelia, on the brink of insanity, taking delight in cruelty, torturing Claudius, wringing his mother's heart, a poison in the midst of the healthy bustle of the court. He is a superman among men. And he is a superman because he has walked and held converse with Death, and his consciousness works in terms of Death and the Negation of Cynicism. He has seen the truth, not alone of Denmark, but of humanity, of the universe: and the truth is evil. Thus Hamlet is an element of evil in the state of Denmark. The poison of his mental existence spreads outwards among things of flesh and blood, like acid eating into metal. They are helpless before his very inactivity and fall one after the other, like victims of an infectious disease. They are strong with the strength of health -but the demon of Hamlet's mind is a stronger thing than they. Futilely they try to get him out of their country; anything to get rid of him, he is not safe. But he goes with a cynical smile, and is no sooner gone than he is back again in their midst, meditating in graveyards, at home with Death. Not till it has slain all, is the demon that grips Hamlet satisfied.
This famous soliloquy offers a dark and deep contemplation of the nature of life and death. Hamlet’s contemplative, philosophical, and angry tones demonstrate the emotions all people feel throughout their lifetimes.
William Shakespeare is seen to many as one of the great writers in history. More specifically, the characters in his plays are reviewed and criticized and have been so for nearly four centuries. The character that many have revered Shakespeare for is perhaps the greatest such character ever in literature, Hamlet from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. The commentary and response to this legend of literature is of wide array and opinion, though most, such as Pennington, believe him to be a truly magnificent character: "Hamlet is perhaps the cleverest hero ever written, the subject of the first European tragedy, a form of genius. A type Shakespeare despaired of writing thereafter, having perceived that the heroes of tragedies must be sublime idiots" (185). However, despite his clear gifts and aura, Hamlet was a doomed character from the beginning: Hamlet is dominated by an emotion that is inexpressible. It is thus a feeling he cannot understand, he cannot objectify it, and it therefore remains open to poison life and to obstruct action" (Eliot 25). Thus, Hamlet, while possessing the traits of no other men of his time, a true Renaissance man, was doomed from the beginning of the play partly by forces he could not control, and also partly by his own character. It leads to a slow but definite ending to one of literature's great characters, one that he could not control. In the end, Hamlet was out of place in his environment, he was simply not meant to be.
In the play Hamlet, Hamlet is described as daring, brave, loyal, and intelligent. However, he is always consumed by his own thoughts, this being his tragic flaw. There are numerous times Hamlet does not act when he should, like his inability to act on his father's murder, his mother's marriage, and his uncle's assuming of the throne.
Hamlet's fatal flaw is his inability to act. Unlike his father, Hamlet lets his intelligence rather than his heroism govern him. When he has a chance to kill Claudius, and take vengeance for his father's murder, he hesitates, reckoning that if he kills the man while he is at prayer, Claudius would have asked for pardon from the Lord and been forgiven of his sins, therefore allowing him to enter Heaven. Hamlet decides to wait for a better opening. His flaw of being hesitant in the end leads to his own death, and also the deaths of Gertrude, Ophelia, Laertes, and Claudius.
for a person of lowly rank that loses his or her fortune or rank than
Hamlet is a character who has a strong desire to act to avenge his father’s death, but for the vast majority of the play finds himself unable to do so. However, by the end of the play, there is a distinct shift to a much more active Hamlet. This active Hamlet is caused in part by another change in Hamlet’s character, that he grows from a skeptic who questions the natural order of the world to someone who yields to and accepts God’s will. Particularly, these changes in Hamlet are emphasized in the contrasts between act 1, scene 2 and act 5, scene 2, as Hamlet finally finds comfort in accepting a divine will, which leads to a more active approach in regards to both killing other people and responding to the unnecessarily fake language of others.
...s poetical and philosophical nature is not ready to hoist the weight, fallen on him after his father's death. The sadness after father's death, marriage of his mother, lack of strong will, and other aspects which make up on the prince's mental problems show how fragile human psyche can be, and how easy we can destroy the peace of human consciousness. Hamlet is a perfect example of duality of human nature. He wants to take revenge on the murderer of his loving father, but at the same time his morality and sensibility as well as his egoistic and selfish needs prevent him from doing it. He wants to perform an act, which is at variance with his nature.
Readers are first given insight to Hamlet’s most inward thoughts in Act I, Scene 2. At this point in the play, Hamlet’s mother and uncle, Queen Gertrude and Claudius, have just announced their marriage. For the past few months, Hamlet has been grieving incessantly at the abrupt loss of his beloved father and king. In the eyes of the Queen and new King, Hamlet has mourned sufficiently and their marriage is in attempt to end the depressing state of the kingdom. Hamlet’s uncle, now step-father, even goes as far as saying Hamlet is acting like a stubborn girl for his prolonged misery, urging him to cease his weeping. Once his mother and uncle leave the stage, Hamlet mulls over the current situation. He starts off by stating that he longs to simply cease to exist, that his flesh would disintegrate back into the earth. He knows that the Lord condemns suicide, but wishes it was allowed for his sake. These first two lines point to Hamlet’s suicidal tendencies and his lack of self-esteem and self-worth. Not only does he have a low opinion of his own life, but he compares the world in his day to an “unweeded garden” that has produced and fostered a vile and corrupt humanity. At this point, existence to him seems lifeless and insignificant, cla...
The perfection of Hamlet’s character has been called in question - perhaps by those who do not understand it. The character of Hamlet stands by itself. It is not a character marked by strength of will or even of passion, but by refinement of thought and sentiment. Hamlet is as little of the hero as a man can be. He is a young and princely novice, full of high enthusiasm and quick sensibility - the sport of circumstances, questioning with fortune and refining on his own feelings, and forced from his natural disposition by the strangeness of his situation.
In 350 B.C.E., a great philosopher wrote out what he thought was the definition of a tragedy. As translated by S.H. Butcher, Aristotle wrote; “Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions. . . . Every Tragedy, therefore, must have six parts, which parts determine its quality—namely, Plot, Characters, Thought, Diction, Spectacle, Melody. (http://www.cnr.edu/home/bmcmanus/poetics.html)” Later in history, William Shakespeare wrote tragedies that epitomized Aristotle’s outline of a tragedy. Shakespeare’s Hamlet is one such tragedy.
The tragedy of Hamlet, Shakespeare’s most popular and greatest tragedy, presents his genius as a playwright and includes many numbers of themes and literary techniques. In all tragedies, the main character, called a tragic hero, suffers and usually dies at the end. Prince Hamlet is a model example of a Shakespearean tragic hero. Every tragedy must have a tragic hero. A tragic hero must own many good traits, but has a flaw that ultimately leads to his downfall. If not for this tragic flaw, the hero would be able to survive at the end of the play. A tragic hero must have free will and also have the characteristics of being brave and noble. In addition, the audience must feel some sympathy for the tragic hero.
Hamlet is the best known tragedy in literature today. Here, Shakespeare exposes Hamlet’s flaws as a heroic character. The tragedy in this play is the result of the main character’s unrealistic ideals and his inability to overcome his weakness of indecisiveness. This fatal attribute led to the death of several people which included his mother and the King of Denmark. Although he is described as being a brave and intelligent person, his tendency to procrastinate prevented him from acting on his father’s murder, his mother’s marriage, and his uncle’s ascension to the throne.