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How did Shakespeare use death in his plays in this part of the Elizabethan Era?
Shakespeare uses ways of death in his plays by suicide, murder, and the most in the old age combat. Murder and combat were the most common types of death because of the old age, there were a lot of wars so people were mostly killed in combat and murder was just another way of saying ”I am going to kill you!”.
Shakespeare uses suicide in many of his plays by showing random suicide and/or because of their loss to victory. For example, Cleopatra had the best life according to Shakespeare, but her method of suicide was the deadly venom of 2 asps (Antony and Cleopatra; Mabillard). On the other hand Brutus convinces his servant to hold his sword as he can throw himself upon it just because Brutus has lost the war against Antony and Octavius ( Julius Ceasar; Mabillard).
Sometimes suicide is the only way to let go of their feelings and/or their expressions of their loved ones. Two star-crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet have fallen in love. They are from their enemies’ houses, but knowing that they are from opposite houses they still didn’t let their enmity come in between. When it was Juliet’s marriage, she couldn’t marry Paris because she was married to Romeo so she took a fake poison to pretend she was dead when she was asleep so the her Romeo could come and take her, but unfortunately Romeo hears that Juliet is dead because of a bottle of poison so he took real poison and killed himself upon Juliet meeting/kissing her one last time(Romeo and Juliet;Mabillard). Once Juliet woke-up she realized that Romeo had taken real poison to kill himself so she also meet/ kissed one last time and took Romeo’s dagger and she also killed herself (Romeo and Juliet; Mabill...
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Mabillard , Amanda. "Violence in Shakespeare: Suicide, Murder, and Combat in Shakespeare's Plays." Violence in Shakespeare: Suicide, Murder, and Combat in Shakespeare's Plays. N.p. 19 Aug, 2008., Tues. 29 April, 2014
< http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/violenceinshakespeare.html >
Crystal, David & Ben. "Shakespeare's Words | Home | William Shakespeare."Shakespeare's Words | Home | William Shakespeare. N.p., May, 2008, Tues. 29 April, 2014
< http://www.shakespeareswords.com/ >
Denton, Jaques Snider. “The System of Shakespeare's Dramas”. St. Louis: G. T. Jones and Company, 1877. 20 Aug. 2009., Tues. 29 April, 2014 < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/hamlet/hamletpolonius.html >
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).
Bradley, A.C. "Shakespeare's Tragic Period--Hamlet." Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth. Toronto: MacMillan, 1967.
Death plays a key role in Romeo and Juliet. During the story, six deaths occur that fashion Shakespeare’s publication into the calamity that’s known around the world. Each death pushes the story forward continuously, leading to the finale where the two lovers die due to love and hate from both feuding families.
Hamlet (The New Folger Library Shakespeare). Simon & Schuster; New Folger Edition, 2003.
Death, Decay and Disease in Hamlet Within ‘Hamlet’, Shakespeare makes a number of references to Denmark's degraded state due to the deceit that lies within. These references are made by Hamlet, Horatio as well as the apparition, thus enforcing the strong theme of death, decay and disease. As aforementioned, Hamlets makes a number of references to Denmark. Preceding the death of his father and the marriage of his mother, his mental state begins to fall into demise. Although he appears to not have much courage at first, his focus remains on avenging his father, whose murder is described as being "most foul." As noted in one of Hamlet's first soliloquies, his downward spiral has already begun and already he is contemplating suicide; "O that this too too sullied flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew (I, II, 130)" and "seems to me all the uses of this world.
Bradley, A.C. "Shakespeare's Tragic Period--Hamlet." Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth. Toronto: MacMillan, 1967.
Shakespeare, William, Marilyn Eisenstat, and Ken Roy. Hamlet. 2nd ed. Toronto: Harcourt Canada, 2003. Print.
Shakespeare, William. The Three-Text Hamlet. Eds. Paul Bertram and Bernice Kliman. New York: AMS Press, 1991.
Golden, Leon, “Othello, Hamlet, and Aristotelian Tragedy” Folger Shakespeare Library in association with George Washington University, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2869923.
The outbreak of the plague during Shakespeare's life reflected in his writing, resulting in a far more massive number of tragedies than comedies. The tragic deaths of his main characters are speculated to have been reference to important people in his life dying unexpectedly. There were time periods in which the plague ...
William Shakespeare treats death in Romeo and Juliet different for each set of characters. Some character deaths was because a familial issue, other were for legal issues. Romeo and Juliet's death was a familial issue, Mercutio’s death was a personal issue and Tybalt's death was a legal issue.
ii. 48-50). Death, violence, and loss are woven all throughout the language, and in doing so, the physicality of such matters dominate the metaphorical world of the play. Perhaps the most tragic event in the play, the death of Cordelia allows the fullest expression of the tragedy’s address to personal morality. Like the other two daughters, Cordelia is an extension of Lear. Thus her death is an aspect of his own, allowing Lear to experience death and speak to the wrongness of it all. “No, no, no life! Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, and thou no breath at all? (Shakespeare V. ii. 306-308).” Both unnatural and inevitable, the unjust death of Cordelia embodies our sense that death is wrong and outrageous. Most of us are not kings, but it may be true that in each of us is a King Lear who is unwilling to give our kingdom, our sense of privilege, our rights we think we have earned. We expect to cling on to our existence, and pretend death does not exist. As we continue to explore the psychology behind death, we find, as we so often do, that Shakespeare has been there before
middle of paper ... ... er continue living in an unjust and cruel world, even though they are capable of taking the easy way out. He brings the question of the afterlife for the main reason why humans don’t commit suicide. In conclusion suicide is used all throughout Shakespeare’s works. Suicide is actually used an unlucky thirteen times in some of his most popular plays.
William Shakespeare's Hamlet is, at heart, a play about suicide. Though it is surrounded by a fairly standard revenge plot, the play's core is an intense psychodrama about a prince gone mad from the pressures of his station and his unrequited love for Ophelia. He longs for the ultimate release of killing himself - but why? In this respect, Hamlet is equivocal - he gives several different motives depending on the situation. But we learn to trust his soliloquies - his thoughts - more than his actions. In Hamlet's own speeches lie the indications for the methods we should use for its interpretation.
...World of Hamlet.” Yale Review. vol. 41 (1952) p. 502-23. Rpt. in Shakespeare: Modern Essays in Criticism. Rev. ed. Ed. Leonard F. Dean. New York: Oxford University P., 1967.