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Themes of mortality and suicide in hamlet
The theme of suicide in hamlet
The theme of suicide in hamlet
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Suicide in Hamlet The Christian belief is that suicide is a mortal sin and will retract your chances of eternal rest in heaven. Most Christians choose life through the hardships in life because of this belief and other reasons. Family and friends are often motivators during low points in life to keep going on. Losing people who are close to you makes it challenging to stay positive and see the light at the end of the dark tunnel. Hamlet has back and forth feelings about suicide, he understands it and is tempted, but he stands by his Christian beliefs. Some Christians believe you cannot redeem yourself after suicide because it is stated in the bible you are incapable of praying after death, but it is also believed that once you’ve committed …show more content…
The word suicide was not even introduced to the English language until after Shakespeare died. There was a reoccurrence of suicidal characters throughout the play writer’s works. If a person killed themselves in those times their loved ones would not be seen as victims of the suicide, but would often try to cover up the suicide and pay people off who saw the body. This is important to the play when the gravediggers are discussing if Ophelia’s burial should be acquiesced. Comparing the way the gravediggers talk about Ophelia’s controversial death and the way people talk about suicide today, you can see many differences, but at the same time not much has changed. Suicide awareness is a massive issue today and has an immense about of attention which differs from Shakespearian times. Still the mindset of suicide being a wrong and selfish act is very apparent. When Hamlet first speaks of suicide, it is not to be taken seriously. He makes his claims in a rampage making it seem like his remarks were made just out of anger. It takes time for his character to develop in front of the reader to realize when he talks of suicide he is seriously taking it into consideration. He relates to why other people might kill themselves. When he is calm and collected he still speaks of his desires to end it all. He comes to the conclusion that he would rather suffer through life to contain his place in heaven. Ophelia on the other
To continue on the subject of suicide, I will bring in some information from my last source, “Shakespeare’s Hamlet 1.2.35-38,” by Kathryn Walls. (Gather information from source and relate to the book).
Hamlet is self centered and irrational throughout most of the play. He goes through various stages of suicidal thoughts that all revolve around a multitude of selfish reasons because he can not deal with his problems. His outbursts, mood swings, and constantly changing character have led to a multitude of reasons for his decisions to not kill himself. Think of this, it is much easier to die for a cause than to live for a cause, and yet all Hamlet wants to do is take the easy way out. There are three major soliloquies that Hamlet has that prove as major turning points of his emotions. Hamlet’s suicidal thoughts ring loud and clear for most of the play, however they do change constantly and play key pieces that provide well written and thought provoking soliques.
It was not considered suicide because she was not the one who caused her grief. Suicide was only considered suicide back then if you killed yourself for something you had done, for example, if you had murdered someone. As you can see, Ophelia is a great example of a tragic hero. Her loyalty to three men caused her final destruction, death. Also, her death caused the final destruction of the death of her brother and Hamlet as well.
Throughout the play, grief takes center stage in many of thecharacter’s lives, but they all choose to react in a different fashion. Grief takes many distinct shapes and forms and until people learn how to overcome it, it will remain an integral part of life. One way to escape grief is to commit suicide, as Ophelia apparently does. Thegravedigger proclaims, “Is she to be buried in Christian burial that willfully seeks her own salvation” (Act V Scene I Lines 1-2). The gravedigger is wondering why a woman who has taken her own life deserves such a fancy funeral. When the Queen informs Laertes and Claudius of Ophelia’s death, she says, “...she[Ophelia] chanted snatches of old tunes” (Act IV Scene VII Line 195). Ophelia did not know how to express her grief, other than in song. In Act IV, she sings of Polonius, “He is dead and gone, lady, he is dead and gone” (Scene V Lines 31-32).
Suicidal tendencies play a huge role in Hamlet by forming character relationships, adding suspense to the plot and storyline. “Ah, I wish my dirty flesh could melt away into a vapor, or that God had not made a law against suicide. Oh God, God! How tired, stale, and pointless life is to me” (Hamlet 1.2.130-134). This quote by Hamlet Junior in act 1 really embodies the
...hat elevates the tension between Laertes and Hamlet to its peak. This passage encases all of the themes in the play: revenge, death, and doomed innocence. Hamlet discusses suicide throughout the play, but it is Ophelia who, at last, takes action against her own despair. Her final deed forces the other characters to act toward a resolution, pushing them to turn words and threats into events. Ophelia lives her life striving to make her own decisions and trying to find purpose in a world dominated by men. She is used as a pawn in a game of revenge and hatred, and only in her act of suicide does she finally make an impact on the people who control her life. The lines describing Ophelia's death are imperative to the play, obviously marking the point where schemes and thoughts become reality, but also showing the lack of women's power during the time of Shakespeare.
...nation to her inevitable death corresponds to her limited (vacant) freedom of speech and license to develop her own convictions and individual identity and question authority. Secondly, Ophelia’s surrender to her imminent fate also echoes her unstable, manipulative, and emotional abusive relationship with Hamlet and the hierarchy in her dynamic, as she always obeys without hesitation. Regardless of how Ophelia’s death began, the result was a suicide, as the pure (graceful), serene, and beautiful imagery of her suicide implies that her death was a last effort to recover her dignity, rebel against her oppressors, and exert her free will. For Ophelia, a life of oppression and blind obedience drove her to a frailty of mind, and in her last moments, she chose death over dishonor to defeat the inner demons threatening to condemn her to an otherwise hopeless existence.
The volume of works that Shakespeare wrote over the course of his lifetime was extensive. In that volume are stories that have influenced so many stories written later, stories that have influenced how many define things like love. Romeo and Juliet is perhaps his best-known work and defined western civilization's concept of love for generations. While slightly lesser known, Hamlet has had much the same degree of impact. This revenge tragedy truly defines the genre and opens up dialogues to many things, like madness. It is often the madness of Hamlet that is delved into but Ophelia too went mad in the end. While her father's murder at the hands of Hamlet undeniably contributed to her suicide, it was not the sole cause. Ophelia was driven to suicide by the way the men in her life treated her.
With the men’s constant abuse, they each start telling her different things. Unsure of whom to listen to, she starts to get confused and starts losing herself. When finally there was no one there to tell her anymore she goes mad, and on the brink of her madness she ends up killing herself. Throughout all these events, no one stops to think of her as an actual person, but instead like a rag doll they could just toss around. The play Hamlet itself was discussed without any bother of Ophelia for nearly four hundred years before scholars started to think of her and read the play with a Feminist viewpoint.
There are two main arguments offered by Christians, and those of other faiths, that advise against an individual seeking suicide, for whatever reason: Life is a gift form God, and that " each individual is its steward." Thus, only God can start a life, and only God should be allowed to end one. An individual who commits suicide is committing a sin. Christians believe that God does not send us any experience that we cannot handle.
After a death, we find ways to overcome grief in this painful world. Some people binge eat their way out while others find the easy way out, which is suicide. In the play Hamlet, Shakespeare portrays mortality in the image of death and suicide. Shakespeare develops Hamlet as a man who is sensitive and uncontrolled by his actions. Hamlet faces challenges that mess with his subconscious, making him feel vulnerable to making decisions that will affect his life.
The way we see ourselves is often reflected in the way we act. Hamlet views himself as different to those young nobles around him such as Fortinbras and Laertes. This reality leads us to believe that over time he has become even more motivated to revenge his father's death, and find out who his true friends are. How can you be honest in a world full of deceit and hate? His seven soliloquies tell us that while the days go by he grows more cunning as he falls deeper into his madness. This fact might have lead Hamlet to believe that suicide is what he really wants for his life's course.
In Hamlet suicide is an issue of controversy and question. Hamlet is a confused man from everything that he has experienced in such a short period of time. And even though Hamlet contemplates suicide he is not the one who suffers from it. Ophelia is actually is the victim of the actual act of suicide. His morality, religion, and philosophical views on suicide keep him from committing the dreaded act.
Hamlet's reason for suicide is the death of his father, the late King Hamlet - or at least this is what he tells the world. He claims his father's death as the reason in his first soliloquy (1.2.133-164), but we are led towards other reasons by the evidence he gives. In the famous "to be or not to be" soliloquy, he says: "For who would bear... the pangs of despised love... when he himself might his quietus make/with a bare bodkin?" (3.1.78-84). The word "despised" is glossed as "unrequited" - and thus we are led to speculation that Ophelia, not the late King, is the true cause of his suicidal urges. The claim that he is mourning his father seems to me to be at best an excuse - in the public eye as he is, Hamlet cannot sink so low as to be moved to kill himself by a woman.
As we have had discussions about this issue in class one of my peers talked about why suicide is never permissible. As they spoke, I could see that they were coming from the view of the universal law. They said that if we sometimes allow suicide to be permissible, then we should have many other morally wrong actions to be occasionally considered admissible also. Another argument for suicide to never be eligible would be that of the religion of Christianity. Within the ten commandments in the old testament, God told Moses the laws that the people must obey and one of them said: “Thou shall not kill.” With taking more into a deeper level of this, it can mean don’t kill others and yourself. Further, in the bible, it says that our body is a temple. Christians believe that suicide is wrong and is a tool of the devil used to have us go against God’s will for our lives and do not fulfill our purpose on this earth. As said formerly in the paper many people believe that suicide is a cowardly move for trying to solve situations. Opposes of my thoughts say that there are many other ways in life rather than death. While I agree with them on that part, I also have to ask how someone could see that other option if they can’t even think about anything other than suicide all the