Shakespeare's Plays: Questions and Answers

3287 Words7 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The fatal flaw in hamlet

1. According to Braunmuller, Hamlet presents several “questions both common and insoluble.” Give an example, citing act, scene, and line numbers. Explain what is “common and insoluble” about the question.

One of the most well known examples of a question that is both common and insoluble within Hamlet is “To be, or not to be” (III.1.56) where he is contemplating the value of life. This question is common as many people think about the reason for life and if they have a specific purpose or simply to explore the realities of life. Many people also begin to think about the afterlife and what happens once someone dies. This is what makes this question common but it is insoluble because no one truly knows the answer to the purpose of life or what happens once you die. Everyone has a different interpretation for the reason or purpose of living from theories created from religion or spiritual beliefs are all different from those created in each individuals mind. Then when it comes to the afterlife no one has any way of truly telling what it is like once you die. Some people have near death experiences but in that time period it is hard to say if they simply went on a journey in their own mind or if they truly went into the afterlife and returned. These uncertainties are what make the question of the purpose of life and the inquiry of the after life so insoluble.

2. According to Braunmuller, Hamlet explores “the labyrinthine ironies of human purpose and human error.” Explain. Give an example, citing act, scene, and line numbers.

Hamlet explores the same ironies of human purpose and human error as most humans in that he is searching for the reason of his existence and on that journey he makes several mistakes. Hamlet seems to find his reason for living once he speaks with his fathers ghost and decides that he must avenge his father’s death by murdering Claudius. On this journey Hamlet begins to formulate a very intricate plot to achieve a rather simple goal, which is one error that many humans engage in. Many people tend to over think, over analyze, and over complicate their situation which then leads them to further human error. When he goes to confront his mother in her chambers and hears someone behind the curtain he again overcomplicates his situation by immediately stabbing through the curtains rather than taking the extra few moments to ensure that it is Claudius.

Show More
Related

  • Hamlet: In Search of His Own Identity

    1373 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...ut his lifetime. With all the events occurring, Hamlet goes through so much stress, pain, and suffering from which started with the murder of his father. He has tried to understand his position in life, yet every step he takes, someone always steps in front of him, and it puts him in a worst situation from which he started. A young man like he should be out studying and having fun with his friends, but his two non family related friends betray him, and follow King Claudius' ruling. His mother who he once loves dearly and felt so close to also betrays him by ending her mourn so soon and remarrying to Claudius. Everyone in Denmark has a problem, and the "unweeded" garden is not being kept in good hands, for which bad things have come. The evil in everyone has come out, and Hamlet searched and searched for a reasoning in life, to only come out with one thing, nothing.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of To Be Or Not To Be Soliloquy

    868 Words  | 2 Pages

    However, Hamlet does not act hastily, his intellectual qualities are displayed when he gingerly conceives a plan to witness Claudius confessing for the death of his father. Hamlet unlike Macbeth does not allow supernatural beings to deceive him, Hamlet is not clouded by what he wants to hear, but seeks the truth. If Hamlet witnesses Claudius confessing to his guilty conscience Hamlet will not hesitate and he will assassinate whoever is responsible for the death of his father. Hamlet’s moral philosophy is gradually deteriorating, as he no longer believes that justice should be in the hand’s of god or the universe. He finds a new sense of purpose in life that he must intervene to discover the truth of his father’s death, where his mentality finds nothing left to question and evoke motivation to undertake revenge in order to restore honor and

    Read More

  • Hamlet and his battle with depression

    1756 Words  | 4 Pages

    Hamlet, a young prince preparing to become King of Denmark, cannot understand or cope with the catastrophes in his life. After his father dies, Hamlet is filled with confusion. However, when his father's ghost appears, the ghost explains that his brother, Hamlet's Uncle Claudius, murdered him. In awe of the supposed truth, Hamlet decides he must seek revenge and kill his uncle. This becomes his goal and sole purpose in life. However, it is more awkward for Hamlet because his uncle has now become his stepfather. He is in shock by his mother's hurried remarriage and is very confused and hurt by these circumstances. Along with these familial dysfunctions, Hamlet's love life is diminishing. It is an "emotional overload" for Hamlet (Fallon 40). The encounter with the ghost also understandably causes Hamlet great distress. From then on, his behavior is extremely out of context (Fallon 39). In Hamlet's first scene of the play, he does not like his mother's remarriage and even mentions his loss of interest in l...

    Read More

  • Hamlet

    1235 Words  | 3 Pages

    Hamlets doubt infiltrates all aspects of the play, from his inner struggles with identity to his enemy Claudius and every character in between. Hamlet never quite overcomes this until shortly after he himself falls victim to both his doubt and Claudius’ and Laertes’ trap. Only after being stabbed by the poisoned rapier and hearing directly from Laertes that he was set up can he act with out doubt. In his final moments with Claudius soon to be dead and his mission and doubt over come, Hamlet tells Horatio to live nd tell his story. In this moment of clarity for hamlet he is able to see life as worth living for his friend outside the shroud of revenge and death that he had until recently been under.

    Read More

  • Barkovs Hamlet: A Tragedy of Errors

    6765 Words  | 14 Pages

    If we really rate Shakespeare's talent that highly as we use to proclaim, we have to exercise a different approach to the contradictions in Hamlet. That is, they must be treated as composition means intended by Shakespeare as integral parts of the structure of Hamlet. Attentive reading suggests that the contradictions reflect a sophisticated structure with two plots both containing seemingly the same cast of characters factually possessing with different biographies.

    Read More

  • Hamlet Madness And Madness

    1118 Words  | 3 Pages

    Hamlet undergoes a series of trials and troubles some that are internal and other’s that create towards a certain path that he cannot escape. Hamlet’s best destruction in this path of no return is characterized in the beginning with his uncertainty of his existence and feeling over the loss of his father’s death. Young Hamlet faces risk within his mind when his mother marries his uncle soon after the death of his father. The death of Hamlet’s father and the immediate marriage of King Claudius and Hamlets mother Gertrude was a major factor in Hamlets depression. Unable to comprehend his melancholy mood he boards on a journey of revenge when learning his father’s ghostly appearance is wandering the Castle at night restless from not finding closure in his life. This event derives from his father’s meeting and revealing the cause of his extraordinary death. Hamlet’s uncle Claudius schemed and conquered in killing his own brother in order to gain the throne and Hamlet in some obligation towards truth, anger, and revenge agrees to expose

    Read More

  • Manic Hamlet in Shakespeare's Hamlet

    1061 Words  | 3 Pages

    Hamlet wishes to avenge the murder of his father and rectify this great injustice. The conflict between his desire to seek revenge and his own thoughts of incompetence is the cause of his initial unrest. "Haste me to know't , that I , with wings as swift / As meditation or thoughts of love , / may sweep to my revenge (1.5.29-31).  Here Hamlet pleads to the Ghost of King Hamlet to reveal the name of his murderer.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Shakespeare's Soliloquy

    1083 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the passage from Act 1, Scene 2 through the use of language and dramatic effect Shakespeare explores and expands the character of Hamlet, also enforcing themes such as gender and desire.

    Read More

  • Hamlet's Motive

    1677 Words  | 4 Pages

    Hamlet has long-been associated with the name of William Shakespeare as a masterful work of literary art. It is one of the most debated, celebrated and studied pieces of all time; a marvel of showmanship from one of the most famous authors to ever pick up the elegant pen of words. Those who have read the drama often marvel at the complexity of Hamlet himself, and debate his hesitancy of action throughout the tragedy-namely, the supposed murder of Claudius which he ‘must’ commit. While many scholars agree on Hamlet’s reasons for delay, critics have yet to narrow their thoughts on Hamlet’s overlying motive: why does behave the way he does? More importantly, what were Shakespeare’s motives in portraying Hamlet the way he ultimately does? Hamlet’s hesitation is not the most convoluted and interesting of the subjects; his rationale of purpose is what drives the entire work to be the complex enigma that it still is, to this day.

    Read More

  • Hamlet, the Existentialist

    1068 Words  | 3 Pages

    Hamlet appears to be a rather philosophical character. He is skeptical and expresses views that nowadays can be described as existential and relativist, but those terms did not exist in Shakespeare’s time. Existentialism analyzes existence and the way humans appear to exist in this world. It is concerned with the individual; finding oneself and finding a meaning to life by one’s own measures.That is exactly what Hamlet is going through. Presented with the jarring conflict of avenging his father’s death, Hamlet finds his meaning to life shortly before dying himself among others tangled in this mess. He was tasked by the ghost of his father to kill Claudius in an act of vengeance, which would be considered noble (though in this case, it is a regicide avenging a regicide; treason for treason). The ideals of society demand that he...

    Read More

  • "To Be or not To Be:" Hamlet and His Suicidal Tendencies

    1106 Words  | 3 Pages

    Hamlet although he believes that suffering must be endured or battled, he also understands that suffering is optional and that suffering is caused from pain and all pain can be relieved. At times Hamlet no longer sees the point of bearing the huge burden of suffering as he does, but rather to end the burden through suicide. These thoughts are however based or can be linked back to Hamlet’s emotion and how his negative emotions overcome his logical thinking. We see however Hamlet’s ability to think logically and understand the reasoning behind suffering and the preciousness of his life. At this point in the play Hamlet no longer doubts his meaning in life, this is quite pivotal because this then allows him the confidence and power to seek revenge on Claudius.

    Read More

  • The Most Power Tragedy In William Shakespeare's Hamlet

    834 Words  | 2 Pages

    “To be or not to be, that is the question: Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles..” - Hamlet Act III, Scene I. William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, written somewhere between 1599 and 1602, is regarded as one of the most power tragedies in English literature. The story is of Hamlet is told in five acts, but this paper will focus on three important events throughout the play -- when Hamlet meets his father’s ghost, when Hamlet’s uncle’s guilt starts to get the best of him and he plots to banish Hamlet, and finally, the tragic dismal climax, resulting in the death of everyone involved.

    Read More

  • The Seven Soliloquies of Hamlet

    1980 Words  | 4 Pages

    Hamlet gives us seven soliloquies, all centered on the most important existential themes: the emptiness of existence, suicide, death, suffering, action, a fear of death which puts off the most momentous decisions, the fear of the beyond, the degradation of the flesh, the triumph of vice over virtue, the pride and hypocrisy of human beings, and the difficulty of acting under the weight of a thought 'which makes cowards of us all'. He offers us also, in the last act, some remarks made in conversation with Horatio in the cemetery which it is suitable to place in the same context as the soliloquies because the themes of life and death in general and his attitude when confronted by his own death have been with him constantly. Four of his seven soliloquies deserve our special attention: 'O that this too sullied flesh would melt', 'O what a rogue and peasant slave am I!', 'To be, or not to be, that is the question', and 'How all occasions do inform against me'.

    Read More

  • Theme Of Corruption In Hamlet

    1110 Words  | 3 Pages

    Hamlet has an enormous amount of stress placed on him by the events of his father’s death and his mother’s hasty marriage. Hamlet’s mentality is further stressed by his father’s appearance in the form of a ghost telling Hamlet the true cause of his death, “The serpent that did sting thy father’s life now wears his crown” (Shakespeare 1.5.38-39), and more importantly telling Hamlet to avenge his death and to never forget him (1.5). This must weigh heavily on Hamlet’s mind as he tries to bring himself to carry out such a corrupt act. As Javed describes Hamlet’s ordeal as, “having taken on unwillingly the task of the revenge whose narrower function may have been to avenge a wronged kinsman, but whose wider one was to purge from society the evil which it could not otherwise escape” (332.) The corruption of Hamlet’s character is tragic because as Polonius says: “the safety and health of [the] whole state” depends on him (Shakespeare 1.3.20). The first drastic demonstration of Hamlet’s corruption is shown when he finds Polonius hiding behind a curtain . Hamlet, who believes his uncle Claudius is spying on him, stabs at the curtain, inadvertently killing Polonius. As Dr. Topchyan describes this act, Hamlet does it in “unrestrained passion,” unexpectedly even for himself. His deed, dictated by the situation, is impulsive, not deliberate – an instinctive action, a desperate

    Read More

  • Oedipus and Hamlet as Father Figures

    884 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Hamlet Prince of Denmark young Hamlet is left facing the outcomes of the conflict his father had with his brother. Old Hamlet is dead, killed by his own brother for the thrown of Denmark. Young Hamlet is in deep morning over the loss of his father and now he has to handle the remarriage of his mother to his own uncle, the man who in cold blood killed his father. Hamlet, with the death of his father, is acting strangely but his whole outlook changes for the worst when his father's ghost visits him. He finds out the true causes of his death and he is influenced by his father to seek revenge. Hamlet's father tells his son to kill his uncle, Claudius because he is the cause of his death. Hamlet loved his father deeply and would do anything for him. He becomes enraged with anger and hate for Claudius and begins to plot his revenge, Claudius' own death. Throughout the play his father's ghost visits Hamlet. Even after his death he has a great control over his son and his actions. These visits are a constant reminder to Hamlet of the truth. Knowing the truth of his father's death has driven Hamlet to the brink of insanity. The only thing he can think of is revenge. His father's death and prior conflict with his brother has left Hamlet in a position of honoring his father and doing right by him, and the only thing he sees fit to do is rid himself of the man that brought about the anger Hamlet is feeling. In the end Hamlet finally gets the revenge he sought with the death of Claudius.

    Read More

More about Shakespeare's Plays: Questions and Answers

Open Document