The Minor Characters of Hamlet Two Works Cited It is reasonable to wonder what Shakespeare had in mind while writing Hamlet. After all, Shakespeare wasn't a philosopher or historian, or even a literary critic. He was a playwright. He didn't leave us critical essays examining his work. It is left to us to examine his work and decide for ourselves, if we care to, what Shakespeare was thinking. Did he know that he was writing a drama of deep psychological significance, a play which would eventually be viewed and read the world over, produced many times over hundreds of years, taught in schools, and thought of as one of the world's greatest plays? I, for one, imagine him crossing the final "t" in the last word of the play, putting down his pen, and saying "I hope it runs a year." Yet Hamlet is an extremely complex play. To appreciate the imagination which went into the creation of this tragedy, let's first delve into what is putatively Shakespeare's most complex tragedy, King Lear. Lear has three daughters: Cordelia, who is faithful and unappreciated by Lear, and Regan and Goneril who receive everything at his hands and betray him. These themes of misplaced love and filial betrayal are mirrored in the subplot of the play, the relationship between the Earl of Gloster and his two sons, Edmund, who is supported and approved by Gloster and betrays him, and Edgar, who unjustly becomes a fugitive from his father's wrath. The mirror is whole. In it we view Cordelia's reflection and see Edgar, while Regan's and Goneril's reflections, which are of one face, show us Edmund. In the main plot ofHamlet, Hamlet's father has been murdered. Hamlet swears revenge, but feign's madness and delays. In the subplot, the chamberlain, Polonius, is murdered by Hamlet. One of Polonius's children, Laertes, swears revenge, while the other, his daughter Ophelia, goes mad. Here, the mirror is cracked. Hamlet's reflection is splintered. We see one part of him, his revenge motive, in Laertes' action, and we see his pretended madness in Ophelia's piteous condition. More than this, Hamlet's image is dimmed compared to those of his counterparts. Hamlet speaks of revenge, but procrastinates; Laertes instantly raises and army and attacks the kingdom, but he must be satisfied over his father's murder. Hamlet only acts mad; Ophelia's madness is too real. Besides production, full-house ticket sales, and royalties-the playwright's typical goals, what was Shakespeare reaching for? He presents us with a play dealing with striking human similarities and differences-and a protagonist who is more than a character, but is a compendium of the qualities of the minor characters. Hamlet's unrealized potential throws the fully-realized actions of Laertes and Ophelia into relief. If the play were about Laertes and Ophelia, Hamlet would be the perfect foil. In Hamlet's fibrillating performance we appreciate Laertes boldness. Viewed against Hamlet's affected loss of wits, Ophelia's true madness is the more pitiful. But to consider Hamlet a foil for Laertes and Ophelia is to miss the point. After all, Hamlet is the hero. The play is, more than anyone, about him. Mirrors can be deceptive. One can lose sight of what is real and what is merely image. Claudius is a case in point. We could never mistake Claudius for the protagonist of the play. Could we? He is Hamlet's antagonist. But, In fact, Claudius has several characteristics common to Shakespeare's tragic heroes. Using *A. C. Bradley's definition, let's examine Claudius's qualifications to be the protagonist of Hamlet. The tragic hero is a person of high degree or great importance: Claudius qualifies here. He is the king. As his fortunes go, so go those of all who surround him. As he is cheerful, the court is cheerful. As his brow is contracted in woe, so the Danish court suffers. The tragic hero has a predisposition in some particular direction, accompanied by an inability to resist the force which drives him (or her): Claudius is ambitious. His ambition drives him to murder his brother, the former king. The tragic hero need not be good. Consider Macbeth and Richard III:Claudius is evil in intent and actions. By their acts, Shakespeare's tragic heroes hope to achieve intended outcomes. But what they achieve is not what they intended; it is terribly unlike it: Claudius's murderous act brings him only short-lived happiness. As the play opens, Claudius's situation is secure. He fears no upsets until Act 3 unfolds. From then on he knows no peace. He is threatened from within by pangs of conscience and from without by Hamlet's knowledge of his crime. Finally, he pays for his crime with his life. The play depicts also the troubled part of the hero's life: Beginning with the death of Polonius, Claudius must plot to kill Hamlet. Moreover, he must deal with rejection by Gertrude, the madness of Ophelia, and an insurrection brought by Laertes. At the end of Act 5, he dies. In the end there is a sense of waste. Our reaction to the death of the protagonist can be expressed with the words If only . . .: We feel no regret, no sense of tragic waste over the death of claudius. All the foregoing characterize Shakespeare's tragic heroes. What is missing in Claudius's case is a tragic effect. There is no sense of waste in Claudius's death, no sense that this death could have been avoided, no arousal of "pity and fear" as there is in Hamlet's, Macbeth's, Othello's, Lear's and Romeo's and Juliet's deaths. If only Macbeth had been less ambitious, Hamlet more forceful, Othello less passionate, Lear wiser, and Romeo and Juliet less impetuous, their untimely deaths need not have occurred. We feel sympathy for these tragic heroes. We react to their deaths with a sense of regret. No one regrets Claudius's death enough to say if only . . . And so, Claudius's reflection, while almost that of a protagonist, lacks the proper form. Gertrude, Hamlet's mother, is at once a cause of Hamlet's pathos through her marriage to Hamlet's uncle and a glass through which we view something of Hamlet's family. We see the family together only once, the ghost appearing in order to remind Hamlet of his vow of vengeance, perhaps, also, to reunite the family. The moment in Act 3 that he appears, when Hamlet and his mother are together, suggests such a motive. Moreover, he appears in his night gown instead of in armor, as in his first appearance. Acting like a husband, he rescues his former wife from Hamlet's anger. However, the ghost's efforts at reunion fail. Gertrude's guilt--marriage to a husband's brother was considered incest--prevents her from seeing the ghost.** By reflection we see Polonius's family, all members destroyed through involvement with Hamlet. We see them together, too, only once, early in the play, as Laertes is preparing to set sail. Ophelia is guiltless. Laertes is guilty only of seeking revenge for his father's murder. Polonius is guilty of being a busybody, a dangerous involvement in Hamlet's tragedy. The longer Hamlet procrastinates, the more bodies pile up, and the more the question of his procrastination takes on importance. Why does Shakespeare make us, the audience, wait until the end of Act 5, for Hamlet finally to play his proper role and resolve all questions? This is Shakespeare's genius. We view Hamlet's procrastination as probable. After all, no matter what Hamlet does, the past cannot be undone. Running a sword through his uncle's ribs will not bring Hamlet's father back. We are willing spectators to the unfolding of this tragedy. And between the anticipation and the act fall some of the most beautiful lines in all of dramatic literature. We never complain of the price of the ticket. And Shakespeare achieves his goal. Hamlet has run a year, several hundred times over. Works Cited *A. C. Bradley, "The Substance of Shakespearean Tragedy" Shakespearean Tragedy, MacMillan and Company Limited, 1904, pp. 1-29 **David Daiches, A Critical History of English Literature, Vol. 2.
Within the first act, the ghost of Hamlet 's father appears three times. Once when Bernardo and Marcellus tell Horatio they’ve seen a ghost, “Before my God, I might not believe this,” (I.I.56), a second time when Horatio says, “But soft, behold! Io, where it comes again!” (I.I.126), and a third time when Horatio tells Hamlet, “It beckons you to go away with it,” (I.IV.58). I believe the three appearances of the ghost are significant because of its biblical reference. In the bible, it says that Jesus was crucified and on the third day he rose again and left to never be seen again. The ghost is framed as jesus in the sense that in act one it took him till the third time to make his last appearance, and in terms of Jesus it was the third day he made his last appearance, so there is correlation between the two. Another occasion when we see the pattern of three is when the ghost says, “Adieu, adieu, adieu! remember me!”(I.V.92). This religiously signifies the departure of the ghost, as at the end of a prayer, one would say “the father, the son and the holy spirit”, three words. With this being said, I feel that the ghost had finished telling Hamlet everything he wanted to and concluded his reason for being there. The final time there is a trend with the pattern three involving the ghost of Hamlet’s Dad is
William Shakespeare. Hamlet edited by Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine. (New York: Washington Square Press, 1992) All future references will come from this text.
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The play, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, written by William Shakespeare in the early 1600s, uses deaths to emphasize the idea of mortality throughout the play. The deaths that occur so frequently in the play are used to atone for wrongs done by the characters earlier in the play. Two major deaths that occur are the deaths of King Claudius and Ophelia. All of these characters did a wrong to one or more persons and in the end of the play they all paid for their wrongs by being murdered or committing suicide.
Hamlet is Shakespeare’s most famous work of tragedy. Throughout the play the title character, Hamlet, tends to seek revenge for his father’s death. Shakespeare achieved his work in Hamlet through his brilliant depiction of the hero’s struggle with two opposing forces that hunt Hamlet throughout the play: moral integrity and the need to avenge his father’s murder. When Hamlet sets his mind to revenge his fathers’ death, he is faced with many challenges that delay him from committing murder to his uncle Claudius, who killed Hamlets’ father, the former king. During this delay, he harms others with his actions by acting irrationally, threatening Gertrude, his mother, and by killing Polonius which led into the madness and death of Ophelia. Hamlet ends up deceiving everyone around him, and also himself, by putting on a mask of insanity. In spite of the fact that Hamlet attempts to act morally in order to kill his uncle, he delays his revenge of his fathers’ death, harming others by his irritating actions. Despite Hamlets’ decisive character, he comes to a point where he realizes his tragic limits.
In Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, the death of a character becomes a frequent event. Although many people lose their lives as a result of their own self-centered wrongdoing, there are others whose deaths are the result of manipulation by royalty. This is the case with Polonius' family. The real tragedy of Hamlet is not that of Hamlet or his family, but of Polonius' family, because their deaths were not the consequence of sinful actions of their own but, rather, of their innocent involvement in the schemes of Claudius and Hamlet.
Death, love, and the betrayal that finishes everyone off in act 5 of Hamlet by William Shakespeare are the factors that make it such a great act. Shakespeare captures the feeling of humor, fear, and love all in two scenes and they are the most memorable by people today. Hamlet’s attitude about death has changed. At the beginning, he was focused fully on himself, now his mental state seems to have changed since his father has died. He wants Laertes’ forgiveness because he is able to think sympathetically about others. The death of Ophelia was a wakeup call because now he knows that it is okay to die.
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive and chronic neurodegenerative disorder. The disease is named after English physician James Parkinson, who made a detailed description of the disease in his essay: "An Essay on the Shaking Palsy" (1817). Parkinson 's disease belongs to a group of conditions called movement disorders. It is characterized by muscle rigidity, tremor, a slowing of physical movement (bradykinesia) and, in extreme cases, a loss of physical movement (akinesia) (Sue, Sue, Sue & Sue, 2014). Early symptoms of Parkinson’s include small handwriting, loss of smell, and restricted facial expression. Over time the disease worsens and symptoms become more pronounced and affect the quality of life. Shaking, slurred or slow speech and
Hamlet’s troubles began to cloud his judgment. He never thought through his plan too kill Claudius. He constantly waited and let each opportunity slip out of his grasp. This clouded judgment was evident in the confession scene where Claudius admits to the murder of Old Hamlet. Hamlet was waiting for Claudius to repent his sins, but once he gets what he wanted, he decides that Claudius doesn’t deserve to go to heaven. Hamlet’s madness caused his hesitation, and the constant delay cost Hamlet his own life.
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Throughout Shakespeare’s play, revenge intertwines to bring about the deaths of most of the main characters. Hamlet’s course of revenge initiates the first fatality when Polonius gets caught spying on him and Gertrude (III. iv. 24-25). By pursuing revenge, Hamlet killing Polonius paves the way for more lives to be lost. Claudius sees the murder as an opportunity to eliminate Hamlet, because Laertes’s obsession with revenge leaves him vulnerable. Laertes’s and Hamlet’s revenge lead to the deaths of Gertrude, Laertes, Claudius, and finally Hamlet (V. ii. 287-357). The revenge of each character ironically ended their own life. By acting upon revenge and having inimical intentions, the individuals brought fatalities that were unnecessary.
Lady Macbeth's flaw is that she convinces Macbeth that he isn't a man unless he goes through with the murder of Duncan. She threatens his manhood by saying "when you durst do it, then you were a man; and to be more that what you were, you would be so much more the man" (act 1, scene VII, l 49-51). After Lady Macbeth convinces Macbeth to kill Duncan, she feels guilty and says "here's the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand" (act 5, scene 1, l 35-36). Lady Macbeth becomes mentally ill; she kills herself because she feels so guilt.
One main theme that arises in the Hamlet is the power struggle between Hamlet and Claudius. The main problem is between Hamlet and Claudius; they are in an ongoing battle throughout the play to see who will rise with the power of the throne. Claudius is the antagonist in the story and has multiple people under him that follow his every rule (Innes). He is a manipulative character who seeks revenge on Hamlet through other people he knows. On the other hand, Hamlet is the protagonist of the story, he is very unhappy after finding out the news of how his father had been killed (Innes). He is overtaken though by the ghost of his father, Old Hamlet, and is seen to become mad as a consequence. Although Hamlet seeks revenge against his new stepfather he procrastinates killing him. Hamlet has also considered killing himself beforehand because of the struggle of power between his stepfather and himself. In the last scene of the play the power struggle that had been between Hamlet and Claudius comes to a conclusion as Gertrude, Laertes, Claudius and Hamlet die. Throughout the play Laertes, Horatio and Gertrude choose a side to be on, either between Hamlet’s and Claudius’s who both are trying to obtain the utmost power.
William Shakespeare's Macbeth, also known as The Scottish Play is one of the most distinguished pieces of literature ever created in history. Written in the early 1600’s, this play embellished tragedy touching upon themes such as death, fate, war, and power. Characters such as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth became iconic and often imitated in theatrical work. Today, Macbeth still reigns supreme throughout the globe, and known to be on of Shakespeare’s many treasures. The production has been put on world wide, and often with it’s own unique spin on the play. The Gamm Theatre’s production of Macbeth was creative, entertaining, and professional.
Hamlet is the best known tragedy in literature today. Here, Shakespeare exposes Hamlet’s flaws as a heroic character. The tragedy in this play is the result of the main character’s unrealistic ideals and his inability to overcome his weakness of indecisiveness. This fatal attribute led to the death of several people which included his mother and the King of Denmark. Although he is described as being a brave and intelligent person, his tendency to procrastinate prevented him from acting on his father’s murder, his mother’s marriage, and his uncle’s ascension to the throne.