Selective Perception in Shakespeare's Hamlet
From the end of Act I, the point at which Hamlet judges it may be prudent to feign madness - to "put an antic disposition on" (I.v.181) - much of the first half of the play concerns characters trying to determine why the prince's melancholy has evolved into seeming insanity. Each of the major players in Elsinore has a subjective impression of the reason for Hamlet's madness; indeed, in each of these misconceptions there is an element of the truth. At the same time, however, the nature of these selective perceptions provides insight into the characters who form them. And finally, these varied perspectives are notable in their effect upon the dynamic of the conflict between Hamlet and Claudius, and upon the king's increasing paranoia.
Long before the encounter with the Ghost turns Hamlet's vague suspicions into something approaching certainty (I.v.1-113), Claudius views Hamlet not as a madman, but as a threat to the security of his rule and possibly his life. This is evident from their first scene, in which Claudius publicly denounces Hamlet's "unmanly grief" (I.ii.94) as "a fault to heaven" (l.101); Claudius seems to be undermining Hamlet's popular support by painting him as unworthy to rule. Even in the face of his court's attempts to dissect the "very cause of Hamlet's lunacy" (II.ii.49), Claudius' initial convictions are never shaken. Like the other characters, Claudius has his own motives for believing as he does; like the other characters, his beliefs are subject to manipulative reinforcement by the play's events. Moreover, the speculation regarding Hamlet's madness serves only to convince the king that Hamlet is not mad, and th...
... middle of paper ...
...nnate guilt and paranoia will not let him view Hamlet any other way. This facet of Claudius' character is integral to the resolution of the tragic sequence: while, in the end, Claudius' paranoia is not enough to save his life, it is certainly sufficient to ensure that no one else escapes the conflict unscathed.
Works Cited
Bevington, David, ed. The Complete Works of Shakespeare. 4th ed. New York: Longman-Addison Wesley Longman, 1997.
Bradley, A.C. Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth. London: Macmillan, 1967.
Hamlet. Prod. Dyson Lovell. Dir. Franco Zeffirelli. Warner Brothers, 1990.
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. British Broadcasting Corp. Prod. Cedric Messina. Dir. Rodney Bennett. Time-Life Films, 1978.
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Bevington 1060-1116.
Much of the dramatic action of Shakespeare’s tragedy, Hamlet is within the head of the main character, Hamlet. His wordplay represents the amazing, contradictory, unsettled, mocking, nature of his mind, as it is torn by disappointment and positive love, as Hamlet seeks both acceptance and punishment, action and stillness, and wishes for consummation and annihilation. He can be abruptly silent or vicious; he is capable of wild laughter and tears, and also polite badinage.
...with the sharpness of an experienced leader and decisively acting on every issue of importance. Therefore, the actor must have an imposing and confident presence on stage, for Claudius dominates Elsinore and is in full control of Denmark. However, by the third act, the King must be depicted as a man who is growing increasingly fearful of Hamlet, and during the play, Claudius is so startled that he must appear as though he has seen the ghost of Old Hamlet. But in my opinion, Claudius’ defining moment comes during his lengthy soliloquy in which he acknowledges his guilt. As he mourns his condemned soul, he should seem so helpless that the audience views him with intense pity, for the character of Claudius, like Macbeth, is not intended to represent evil but instead to show the universal ability of power to corrupt and to destroy lives in the process.
“Any action of an individual, and obviously the violent action constituting a crime, cannot occur without leaving a trace.” (LOCARD, 1934), This means that no crime can be committed without leaving behind evidence which will help forensic scientists link the criminal to the crime. When a person touches a surface or thing they leave behind some sweat which will create a copy of their fingerprint on the surface, they are often found at crime scenes and most of which are not linked to the case at all, but the uniqueness and reliability of these prints means that when a set of prints are found at a location they should not be the mark is examined and compared to prints taken from suspects, indicating that the person who matches these prints was at the scene of crime at some point, linking them to the
Author: Clarence Gerald Collins (1995), Finger Print Science (pp: 163, 5). Press: Copper house Publishing Company
They typically have just a portion, or a part, of a fingerprint. An unknown fingerprint is called a “latent” print, and scientists compare them to “known” fingerprints in police computer files. When comparing prints, scientists look for basic kinds of patterns.
Imagine this; you are a police officer that has worked for years in a department. You have always had to enter a suspect’s fingerprint information into the...
The use of media can be an extremely powerful tool to help combat corruption when everyone is on the same page. Global Integrity is an organization based in Washington, D.C. which reports international corruption trends (Heller, 2007). Global Integrity is exactly what is needed in order to combat corruption across the globe. Unfortunately Global Integrity is not a source in which information is easily obtained by a normal citizen. In order to combat corruption it is in the hands of everyday citizens to do their part to help. Corruption is not often fought by politicians, as many misinformed people would think, as they are often the ones partaking in these practices, or condoning them. Although Global I...
Thesis Statement: In this speech I am going to explain how forensic teams use fingerprints to identify individuals.
Many wonder if two people can have the same or similar fingerprints. Do identical twins have the same fingerprints? How are fingerprints even made? Scientists have studied fingerprints because they can teach us about genetics, solving crimes, and even the humans sense of touch. Fingerprints are most important because they are used for identification, which is why they are a part of forensic science, the use of science to study criminal and civil laws.In the world there nobody has the exact same fingerprint as another person, even identical twins don't have the same fingerprint. Every person's fingerprints are unique.
William Shakespeare’s creation of the character of Hamlet within the tragedy of that name left open the question of whether the madness of the protagonist is entirely feigned or not. This essay will treat this aspect of the drama.
Fingerprinting is an important factor in forensics. By using the technology and expertly trained forensic scientists at our disposal, the fingerprints found at a crime scene can be the most important piece of evidence for solving a crime (4). Fingerprints fully develop in humans while still in the womb. The three most common patterns are loops. They are found in 65% of the population, the next most common is whorls which are found in 35% of the population. Lastly are arches these are found in only 5% of the world (2). Fingerprints could be visible; this means you can see marks left on a surface by oily fingers (2). Other fingerprints are latent which means you can 't see them, but there are marks left by sweat, amino acids, and other organic residue (2). The earliest known fingerprints patterns were used by the Chinese in the 700s for identification and identity of documents on clay tablets (4). Sir Francis Galton’s published book, ‘Fingerprints ' in 1892 showed everyone the individuality and permanence of fingerprints (7). Galton 's first interest in fingerprints was supposed to help in
“Crime scene processing is a critical component in the resolution of crimes against persons and property, to include homicide, sexual assault, aggravated assault, robbery, and drug use” (Hunkeler, I). When searching the term fingerprints on Merriam-Webster, one finds numerous definitions for the term and learns that there are various types of fingerprinting. One classification reads that fingerprints are “an ink impression of the lines upon the fingertip taken for the purpose of identification” (Merriam-Webster). Another definition explains that fingerprints are “the base-pair pattern in an individual's DNA obtained by DNA fingerprinting” (Merriam-Webster). Both of these definitions provide a worthy understanding of fingerprinting, especially dealing with the crime scene aspect. Although it may seem that it is a fairly simple concept to understand, it is complex and takes time to learn and understand the different types and ways to gather and collect fingerprints.
The narrative position in this extract is third person omniscient, in fact Mansfield dose not introduce characters much through narration, we learn about them from direct observation. Therefore this extract is particularly important as it is an exploration of Beryl’s secret self. Beryl realizes she plays multi-roles in her personalized fantasy world. Her name itself is a perfect metaphoric evidence of this, as gem-stone beryl allows its color to be determined by external stimuli, we can assume that beryl plays different roles in her life according to external environment and atmosphere. “I’m always acting a part. I’m never my real self for a moment.” Beryl remonstrates herself that her life is i...
Clark, W. G. and Wright, W. Aldis , ed. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Vol. 1. New York: Nelson-Doubleday
Over the last few years, the issue of corruption--the abuse of public office for private gain--has attracted renewed interest, both among academics and policymakers. There are a number of reasons why this topic has come under recent inspection. Corruption scandals have toppled governments in both major industrial countries and developing countries. In the transition countries, the shift from command economies to free market economies has created massive opportunities for the appropriation of rents, excessive profits, and has often been accompanied by a change from a well-organized system of corruption to a more chaotic and deleterious one. With the end of the cold war, donor countries have placed less emphasis on political considerations in allocating foreign aid among developing countries and have paid more attention to cases in which aid funds have been misused and have not reached the poor. And slow economic growth has persisted in many countries with malfunctioning institutions. This renewed interest has led to a new flurry of empirical research on the causes and consequences of corruption.