William Shakespeare's Hamlet
There are enough conceptions, and thus misconceptions, about the melancholy Dane to fill volumes. However, while none of them has proved entirely acceptable, some of them, such as the diagnoses that Hamlet simply “procrastinates” or “cannot make up his mind” prove utterly unsatisfactory under careful scrutiny of the play and, perhaps more importantly, Hamlet himself. Indeed, it appears as if there are certain points in the play in which Hamlet comes to reversals as he eventually counters each one of his own arguments and concludes each of his struggles, until, in his return from England, he is someone quite different from the self-loathing, melancholy, emotionally torn man in the “inky cloak” (I.ii.77) to the one who proclaims “This is I,/ Hamlet the Dane” (V.i.258).
One theme throughout Hamlet is a desire for suicide, a self-loathing that prompts him, time and time again, even after he receives a vocation from his dead father to “revenge his foul and most unnatural murder” (I.v.26), to consider taking his own life and, in so doing, allow him to escape from the world, a prison, “A goodly one, in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons, Denmark being one o’th’ worst” (II.ii.246-248). From the first time the audience sees Hamlet, before his meeting with the ghost, it is clear that he has a strained relationship with God: “Or that the Everlasting had not fixed/his canon ‘gainst self-slaughter!” (I.ii.131-132): later on, in the same soliloquy, calling the world “weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable” (I.ii.133). Hamlet’s famed melancholy is at once apparent and understandable: his father is dead under questionable circumstances, his mother, the essence of “frailty” (I.ii.146), remarried i...
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... own demise in a revenge tragedy instills regard, yes, but significantly less than watching the slow decay of the intellectual from the self-loathing pensive student of the first act to the fatalistic almost thoughtless warrior in the fifth act is not only more dramatic, but significantly more thought-provoking, and Shakespeare even hints at this fact in Act III, Scene IV: “For ‘tis the sport to have engineer/hoist with his own petard” (III.iv.213-14), suggesting that to watch the most schooled of minds drown in an incomprehensible and perplexing anguish is so utterly ironic, like the engineer blowing himself up, that it succeeds in producing, in Aristotle’s mind, the desired effects of pathos and fear, perhaps better than in any other tragedy for here it is not just the good man committing the bad deed, but the wise man succumbing to the failure of his knowledge.
William Shakespeare was a Stratford Grammar School boy, who was a member of the Church of England, similar to just about everyone else in Stratford. However, due to some events that occurred in the Shakespeare family home, there is some evidence that could prove that the family may have had some Roman Catholic connections. When William Shakespeare was 10 years old, legal issues and debt took a toll on his family’s life. Shakespeare’s father’s stopped attending alderman meetings which resulted in the removal of his name to become an alderman, and he was also forced to sell his beautiful home. The cause of this crisis is unknown, however the records can be used to throw together the idea that there were peculiar religious events going on (Fox). Due to these mishaps, William Shakespeare’s religion is a bit of a mystery. The play, Hamlet, was written by William Shakespeare during the Elizabethan era, which happened to be a time when religious conflicts were a big deal (Alsaif). The protagonist in the story, Hamlet, is a character who seems to make his choices through his religious beliefs. Hamlet is a very indecisive person, but his thoughts on religion tend to persuade him. In the play Hamlet, William Shakespeare uses the character of Hamlet to show the flaws in all religions. Hamlet does his best to follow the rules of Christianity, but he often questions the morality involved. Although Shakespeare belonged to the Church of England, he didn’t find any particular religion to be perfect.
William Shakespeare's Hamlet Relationships between characters of the younger and older generations is a main focus and central theme of Hamlet. The play differs from convention in that older characters are generally found to be the ones who have acted wrongly or who have made mistakes. The younger generation, Hamlet included, tend to act according to what they believe to be morally correct and appear to have a greater conscience and sense of justice. Generally, productions of Hamlet present the younger generation in such a way that the audience would feel sympathy with them and disgust at the actions of the older generation. However, there are exceptions to this and at certain places in the text,
Shakespeare paints a vivid picture of the deaths that are carried out in the book with his use of words and description of life and the afterlife. The death of each individual holds a certain meaning, for each death sets about a reaction. It just goes to show that revenge and greed is never the answer and a heart filled with such will be the death of one self. No one in the book dies without a purpose or without an elaborate reason.
Tragedies in the Greek theater when compared to tragedies in the Renaissance theater varied in similarities and differences. Greek theater encouraged the use of religious figures while Renaissance theater was supposed to be strictly pagan in its ideologies. Theater was most dominantly used to depict the social and religious constraints of the time period. For example, Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex are both portrayals of deceit, murder, and revenge all of which lead to the demise of its leading characters. Hamlet is depicted as a young man who is seeking revenge for his fathers death. Oedipus is a king who means to free the people of Thebes from a disease that has been plaguing them. They share similarities in that each of their love interest are conduits of their pain and anguish, further pushing the protagonists over the precipice. The voice of reason that they share is Creon in Oedipus Rex and Horatio in Hamlet. Their tragic flaw is that they are both ultimately and utterly doomed and no amount of guidance will steer them away from what has been predestined by fate. They are ultimately doomed to be their own Achilles heel.
One of Shakespeare’s great pieces of work, Hamlet, has been divided to alternate versions Quarto 1and Quarto 2. Focusing on Act I Scene iii, apparently the differences in these two versions are mainly on the way the characters are formed and the language that is used. Quarto 1 is a much more compact version that has weakly defined characters and uninformed language. As for Quarto 2 this lack of complexity is not so. This version has a higher quality of character depth and a language that is more comprehensible to allow more meaning to the play. Nonetheless the mutuality between these two versions main idea are clearly the significant mutilations to these scene are factors that make the play have a different meaning. The Quarto that would be most appealing to actors and the one that would be more fulfilling to the reader would be the second one because of it richness in characters and language.
In “Hamlet,” Shakespeare commendably conveys a, if you will, a “love story” between the major characters in the play. Hamlet, Gertrude and Claudius are the individuals he writes about. In this story, Gertrude must choose between her son, a loyal, sincere male figure in her life that has always supported and loved her, or a man who can offer her power and fulfill her dependency trait, which one may say is what she has always strived to attain. Gertrude’s inability to see the bigger picture of King Claudius’ deceit and ill morals is what makes Gertrude a weak and submissive character. While Gertrude means no harm, her poor judgment contributes significantly to the rotten events that occur throughout the play. The choices Gertrude does make ultimately leads to her death and the downfall of the ones she loves as well.
William Shakespeare's Hamlet Perhaps the greatest uncertainty in William Shakespeare's Hamlet is the character of Queen Gertrude. Undoubtedly a major player with regard to number of lines and contribution to the action of the play. her personality is nonetheless basically undeveloped. It is also notable that Gertrude is perhaps the only character besides Hamlet. with enough power over all of the characters to stop the play's tragic.
The play Hamlet by Shakespeare, takes place in The Kingdom Denmark at the beginning of 17th century. The word tragedy means a failing of character in the hero of a tragedy that begins about his downfall. “The tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark” says it all because he was prince of Denmark and, he was not free to carve for himself. Hamlet, like all the other major characters, was untrue to himself. When he was himself, he was like Horatio, a student from Wittenberg. But as he said, "Horatio, or I do forget myself." He did forget himself. He erased himself and his humanist education from his own brain and there in the book and volume of his brain he wrote his father's commandment (the voice of Denmark, sent from Hell to speak of horrors, to breathe contagion, unfolding the secrets of his prison-house that he was forbid to tell to mortal ears). Hamlet was from himself taken away. In the play Hamlet by Shakespeare, the character Hamlet’s tragic flaw is outlined by his inability to act, and make final decisions upon his desired goals. So in the essay below there are some examples from the book that leads hamlet to his tragic flaw. At some point he is too rational that is also one of the causes that leads to his tragic flaw.
Far too often we see men and women with noble causes lose their motive because of their emotional behavior. Their emotions cause them to lose track. We see no finer example of a man with a noble cause whose emotions cause him to lose sight of his noble cause: the character of Laertes in the play Hamlet. Laertes has a vendetta against Hamlet for killing his father. Although Laertes meant well in avenging his father’s death, his emotional behavior overtook him in the process. If we look at other characters in the play, we find a similar struggle between a noble goal and one’s emotions. Hamlet fights the same battle as Laertes does; however, Hamlet is better able to control his emotions. To maintain a noble goal without faltering, one must be able to rid one’s self of emotions that lead to undesirable actions.
The complexity and effect of father-son relationships seems to be a theme that Shakespeare loved to explore in his writings. In Hamlet, the subject is used as a mechanism to identify the similarities between three very different characters: Fortinbras, Laertes, and Hamlet. They have each lost their fathers to violent deaths, which leads them to seek vengeance. As different as they may seem, they all share the common desire to avenge their father’s deaths. The method they each approach this is what differentiates each of their characters, and allows the audience to discern their individual characteristics. Fortinbras, Laertes, and Hamlet’s intense loyalty to their fathers drives them to individual extreme measures of revenge, exemplifying Shakespeare’s masterful use of describing the human psyche during Elizabethan times.
When in the course of human events, something’s are made self-evident, like having to read Hamlet and write about three soliloquies. These soliloquies tend to be very lengthy and have very sub surface meanings to them that require some enabled humanoids to use the frontal cortex of their neurological brains in order to understand these meanings. In other words, they are hard to understand, especially with them being written in the Shakespearean era of influence in the island Kingdoms that are Untied. However, they offer meanings unimaginable and crucial to the outcome of the play Hamlet. As I have just explained, the three soliloquies of Act I, II, III, of the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare have very deep important meanings and messages to them.
In William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, Hamlet does avenge his father’s death but at the cost of many life’s. Multiple characters must be analyzed in order to make an opinion about Hamlet’s revenge. There are many reasons to hamlet delaying avenging his father’s death because he finds out from a ghost he could not trust. Hamlet can be compared to Laertes and Fortinbra. They are very similar but different and the same time. Each of them loved their fathers very much and felt as if they have to avenge their father’s death. Something they had in common has been that they felt their fathers were disrespected not only their fathers but them as well. Hamlet took a very weak approach to his father revenge where as in Laertes was quick to act and Fortinbra was in the middle.
One of the main arguments surrounding the famous play, Hamlet, written by Shakespeare, is focused on whether the main character Hamlet was actually insane, or just pretending to be. Shakespeare does not directly state Hamlet’s madness but rather he hints at it throughout the play and this lets the reader decide on their own interpretation. Hamlet’s insanity can be seen in his reckless decisions, extreme mood swings, and daring manner in which he speaks to the king. However it can be judged reasonable because being mad temporarily satisfies his conscience, gives him some protection from Claudius, and it buys some time for Hamlet to prove Claudius’s guilt. In the play as a whole, Hamlet’s choice to be mad characterizes him as intelligent and reveals the inner turmoil surrounding his mission to avenge his father’s death.
Hamlet’s anger and grief- primarily stemming from his mother’s marriage to Claudius- brings him to thoughts of suicide, which only subside as a result of it being a mortal and religious sin. The fact that he wants to take his own life demonstrates a weakness in his character; a sense of cowarness, his decision not to kill himself because of religious beliefs shows that this weakness is balanced with some sense of morality. Such an obvious paradox is only one example of the inner conflict and turmoil that will eventually lead to Hamlet’s downfall.
The loss of a parent can have a traumatic effect on one. It can lead he or she to a place of sadness, darkness and depression. In Shakespeare's revenge tragedy "Hamlet", the passing of the King stirs up the same emotions in the prince Hamlet. Although, it would be the starting point of his journey filled with deceptions, murders and conspiracy. After a visit from his dead father as a ghost, and the revelation of his uncle's betrayal, Hamlet embarks on a path to avenge the death of his father (Shakespeare). In the midst of all the lies and deceptions, before his ultimate downfall Hamlet achieves his goal of avenging the death of his father by killing Claudius, while liberating Denmark from a deceitful ruler; his uncle Claudius.