Vengeance, as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary, is “[t]he act of avenging oneself or another” (Def. 1.A.) and appears as a common motive to many characters throughout plays during Renaissance times. This idea of vengeance and revenge is present in many of Shakespeare’s plays, notably his most famous play Hamlet and also The Tempest. Both plays really have a strong focus on vengeance and getting revenge on someone, but these ideas are quite different today than they were in Shakespeare’s time. Within this essay, it will be discussed how vengeance and revenge are apparent in both Hamlet and The Tempest. Also, the differing ideas on vengeance and revenge in today’s society versus Renaissance times will be discussed.
Within the play Hamlet, the ideas of vengeance and revenge are very apparent. In fact, Hamlet “is in a grip of an inner compulsion” (Greenblatt 106) where he is obsessed with this idea of getting revenge for the death of his father, which he learns about the murder in Act I by his ghost. This is also when the audience learns how the current king, Claudius, killed his own brother with ear poison. During the last few scenes of Act I, the ghost has Hamlet follow him through the forest so that they can speak in private. Before King Hamlet’s ghost tells Hamlet the truth about what happened, he says, “So art thou to revenge when thou shalt hear” (1.5.8). He is telling Hamlet that he will want or need to get revenge after the story he is about to hear. A few lines later the ghost tells Hamlet, “Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder” (1.5.25). This is a critical point in the play because the ghost is telling Hamlet that he must get revenge for the horrible murder that had occurred.
As for Shakespeare’s supposed fi...
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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).
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Shakespeare, William. Othello. Ed. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2009. Print
Shakespeare, William. The Norton Shakespeare. Edited Stephen Greenblatt et al. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997.
Shakespeare, William. Othello. Ed. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2009. Print
Mack, Maynard. Everybody’s Shakespeare: Reflections Chiefly on the Tragedies. Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press, 1993.
Shakespeare, William. "The Tempest." The Norton Shakespeare. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1997: 3055-3106.
Taking revenge against his enemy can be a difficult task for young Hamlet, especially when the circumstances and conditions he is under require him to reevaluate his morals of life and soul. The delay in Hamlet’s revenge of his father’s death is caused by three main reasons: he is under strict and almost impossible guidelines laid out by the ghost of his father, King Hamlet, he is afraid of death either suffering it or inflicting it on someone else, and his lack of reasoning in committing a murder that he did not witness himself.
“If you seek revenge, dig two graves.” This ancient Chinese proverb explains the mood in Hamlet, a play, written by Shakespeare. The theme of revenge is seen throughout the play as each character extracts one form or another of revenge from a person who has wronged them. In the play the characters Hamlet, Laertes, and Fortinbras all desire revenge for a lost father; however, their motivations for murder differ.
Cohen, Walter, J.E. Howard, K. Eisaman Maus. The Norton Shakespeare. Vol. 2 Stephen Greenblatt, General Editor. New York, London. 2008. ISBN 978-0-393-92991-1
Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. The Oxford Shakespeare Complete. 2ndnd ed. USA: Oxford University Press, 2005. 6024-135. Web. 14 Dec. 2013.
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Ed. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine. New York: Washington Square-Pocket, 1992. Print.
In Hamlet Shakespeare is able to use revenge in an extremely skillful way that gives us such deep insight into the characters. It is an excellent play that truly shows the complexity of humans. You can see in Hamlet how the characters are willing to sacrifice t...
Throughout Hamlet, each character’s course of revenge surrounds them with corruption, obsession, and fatality. Shakespeare shows that revenge proves to be extremely problematic. Revenge causes corruption by changing an individual’s persona and nature. Obsession to revenge brings forth difficulties such as destroyed relationships. Finally, revenge can be the foundation to the ultimate sacrifice of fatality. Hamlet goes to show that revenge is never the correct route to follow, and it is always the route with a dead