A Socratic Seminar In Shakespeare's Hamlet

Hamlet Socratic Seminar

Hamlet delays so long in avenging his father's death would be due to his religion of protestant who do not believe in purgatory(). ()

“I am thy father's spirit,

Doomed for a certain term to walk the night

And for the day confined to fast in fires

Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature

Are burnt and purged away” (1.5.14-18). The Oedipus complex (only takes his revenge after the death of his mother). The role of theatre show the drama of it all. Hamlet uses the theater in order to not so sudley teach a lesson to his Uncle Claudius who also proves his guilt due to the parallels presented in this meta-play situation. Horatio's role in this (). The theme of madness is essential within this work().

At the beginning of the play Hamlet’s contemplation of suicide ().

“O, that this too too sullied flesh would melt,

Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew,

Or that the Everlasting had not fixed

His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God, God,” (1.2.129-132). Later on in the play as time goes on Hamlet develops a different outlook upon life in which his view on suicide changes seen in the quote.

“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

Throughout this solique how does not use me or I but rather contemplates why people in general don’t commit suicide. Moving on rather than dwelling upon the idea of his own death. In the end the outcomes are the same for both suicide and revenge which is an afterlife in hell and or the unknown which he considers as well. One of the most famous lines within this play ().

“This above all: to thine own self be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.” (1.3.84-86). Polonius is full of advice yet has never taken his own advice. Being a spying rat he has no right to talk about truth. The role of women in this (). To obey and be dictated by men.This concept ultimately drove Ophelia to madness in that she lost the men in her life, Laertes going back to school, the loss of Hamlet's love and future, and finally Polonius being murdered is her breaking point in which breaks her and leads to her death.

“That it should come to this:

But two months dead—nay, not so much, not two.

So excellent a king, that was, to this

Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother

That he might not beteem the winds of heaven

Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and