Madness and Insanity in Shakespeare's Hamlet - Hamlet, the Melancholy Hero

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In Shakespeare's tragedy, Hamlet, the protagonist is consistently portrayed as a melancholic character. This quality is evident throughout the entire play and will be the focus of this essay. In the General Introduction to The Riverside Shakespeare, Harry Levin explains how the dramatist uses imagery to further emphasize the melancholic nature of the hero. The paragraph is well-written and does not contain any writing issues. No changes needed as this sentence contains a citation. The story opens on a cold and dark winter night in Denmark, as the guard changes on the battlements of the royal castle of Elsinore. For two consecutive nights, at the stroke of one o'clock, a ghost has appeared on the battlements. The figure is dressed in complete armor and has a face resembling that of the dead king of Denmark, Hamlet's father (35). Horatio and Marcellus leave the ghost-ridden ramparts of Elsinore with the intention of seeking Hamlet's assistance. The prince is disheartened by his mother's "o'erhasty marriage" to his uncle, which occurred less than two months after the funeral of Hamlet's father. During a social gathering of the court, Hamlet is present, dressed in black, the color of mourning for his deceased father. In his first soliloquy, he expresses his melancholy and emphasizes the frailty of women, an obvious reference to his mother's hasty and incestuous marriage to her husband's brother. "Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him, as if an increase of appetite had grown by what it fed on. And yet, within a month--let me not think on't--Frailty, thy name is woman!"...

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...Ed. Leonard F. Dean. New York: Oxford University P., 1967. Rosenberg, Marvin. "Laertes: An Impulsive but Earnest Young Aristocrat." Readings on Hamlet. Ed. Don Nardo. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1999. Rpt. from The Masks of Hamlet. Newark, NJ: Univ. of Delaware P., 1992. Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 1995. http://www.chemicool.com/Shakespeare/hamlet/full.html No line nos.

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