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Hamlet a victim of circumstance
Hamlet symbolism essay
Hamlet a victim of circumstance
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Living in a time when you can't trust people who you call family to even your closest friends is a very hard way to go through life. Most would assume living your life in that way would strongly influence your outlook on life in a negative way, but not this special character. The infamous Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, more commonly known as Hamlet was created in 1905 by the well known William Shakespeare. Hamlet is the longest and most powerful play he’s ever written. In a quick instance Hamlet's life slowly began to crumble around him after his father was tragically murdered in the Kingdom of Denmark around 1602. But the biggest downfall that the Hamlet characters have to overcome is being involved in betrayal and revenge.
Claudius
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became the new King of Denmark after the recent death of his brother, King Hamlet, and his new marriage to Gertrude. He is often looked at as the villain of the play. This resulted from his desire to have the utmost power and his lack of self control. Claudius is also a very corrupt politician, he is well known for his ability to manipulate people by his smooth and persuasive speeches. He is more popularly known in the play though for his ultimate act of betrayal to his brother King Hamlet. Claudius killed his brother and ended up marrying his wife Gertrude. In the end Claudius ended up taking all of his brother’s fortune and the love of his life. Then after Claudius attained everything he ever wanted, all his brother lived for, he killed Gertrude. The book starts of with King Hamlet getting killed from poison that gets put into his ear by his only brother Claudius.
Claudius soonly after doing this told everyone his brother had died from a poison snake. Betrayal is a very common theme in this book. Claudius even sent Hamlet to England with his two friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Once arriving there he read a letter sent from Claudius to both Rosencrantz and Guildenstern ordering them to kill Hamlet. Towards the end Claudius even killed his wife Gertrude. King Claudius betrays Gertrude who he's supposed to be in love with, by poisoning her. He purposely allow his wife to drink out of a poisonous cup without saying anything until she was done. “ it is the poison'd cup; it is too late.” Many of the Hamlet characters are involved in betrayal and …show more content…
revenge. To start the book Hamlet himself had an interesting predicament with his Uncle killing his dad and marrying his mother.
Hamlet soon met his father’s ghost who commanded his son to kill his uncle. Hamlet begin to plot revenge on his uncle trying to think of the best way of killing his uncle. Hamlet begin to question his father ghost thinking it could just be the devil. Hamlet decides to reenact the murder of his father by creating The Murder of Gonzago. “The play's the thing Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king’’. He had the opportunity to kill him inside a church while he was praying but didn't because he didn't want him to go to heaven.”Now might I do it pat, now he is praying And now I'll do 't. And so he goes to heavy And so am I revenged. That would be scanned: A villain kills my father, and for that, I, his sole son, do this same villain send To heaven.” In this quote Hamlets is referring to why he did not kill Claudius when he had the opportunity to. Hamlet was also betrayed by his mother shortly after his father died she married his uncle to remain the queen of Denmark. Hamlet was still sad about his father being killed and he is very upset at his mom. Hamlet feels his mother never loved his father after she betrayed him. “She married. O, most wicked speed, to post with such dexterity to incestuous sheets! It is not, nor it cannot come to good. But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.” Many of the Hamlet characters are involved in betrayal and
revenge. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark or Hamlet as we know it was created in 1905 by William Shakespeare. It has grown to become one of the most successful and well known plays of its kind, especially Shakespeare’s best. It is the longest and most powerful play he’s ever written in fact. Within the play you see tons of revenge and action taken out on one another out of anger or jealousy. No matter if you share blood or just a strong bond, nothing is too strong to overpower someone wanting more power.
Hamlet Compare and contrast between Hamlet and Laertes William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” is known as the best tragedy play of all times. Each one of the characters has their own unique personality, but some of them are very alike. Hamlet, the main character, and Laertes, one of the other leading roles, are very much alike but at the same time slightly different. Their experiences collide and they both make some decisions, which change their lives forever. Hamlet and Laertes both display impulsive reactions when angered.
Something was definitely rotten in the state of Denmark. The king was dead of a murder most foul, a betrayal from his own brother, young Hamlet was thrown out of the frying pan, which was his father's passing, and into the fire of revenge. On would think that an act of revenge such as this, retribution from an enraged son over the unjust murder of his father, would come so quickly, wildly, and brutally, driven by anger and rage. This simply was not the case in William Shakespeare's Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. As the young prince Hamlet carefully thought out his plans for revenge over a rather large amount of time due to his own apparent weakness, inaction. "The smallest deed is greater than the grandest intention"(Stokes 90). Hamlet was full of grand ideas and intentions on how to kill the King, but he failed to act and to carry out the deed that was his revenge, the destruction of Claudius. Why did Hamlet choose and it was his choice, not to take revenge on Claudius quickly and decisively? Hamlet had his own reasons for inaction; the strategy that he felt best suited his revenge.
In the players’ scene, Hamlet revises the play of The Murder of Gonzago, adding in a scene that hints at the murder of King Hamlet. When Claudius reacts to Hamlet’s trap and makes a sudden exit, Hamlet now knows that the ghost’s story is true and will “take the ghost’s word for a thousand pound.” He now has no reason not to act. Prior to witnessing Claudius’ reaction, Hamlet has been debating with himself over the legitimacy of the ghost and its story. He has been questioning himself and whether he is a coward, because all he has done is talk, not having taken any action. Now that Hamlet knows the murderous sin Claudius has committed, Hamlet feels no guilt in avenging his father’s death. The plot takes a turn, as Hamlet becomes more of a man of action than a philosopher.
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.
The Shakespearean play of Hamlet captures the audience with many suspenseful and devastating themes including betrayal. Some of the most loved characters get betrayed by who they thought loved them most. The things these characters do to the people they love are wrong, hurtful and disappointing. These examples lead to the destruction of many characters physically and emotionally. The characters in the play who committed the act of betrayal end up paying for what they have done in the form of death, either from nature, their selfishness, disloyalty and madness. The act of betrayal truly captures and displays the play of Hamlet as a sad tragedy.
Ophelia and Gertrude, two different women who seem to be trapped in the same situation when it comes to Hamlet. Gertrude, Hamlet's mother and the Queen of Denmark is married to Claudius, who is suspected by Hamlet to have killed his father, King Hamlet, who is Claudius's brother. Gertrude ended up in the plot of King Hamlet's death and in the eyes of her son, is a monster and helped with the murder. Ophelia, the daughter of Polonius who is the King's counselor and is later killed in the play and has forbidden his daughter to see Hamlet. She truly loves Hamlet and is devastated when he disowns her and pretends to be mad. Hamlet's treatment towards these two women brings their characters to life and eventually brings an end to them.
Many people question the psychological condition of the character Hamlet in the sixteenth century play Hamlet written by William Shakespeare. One of the reasons that the mental health of hamlet is in question by many people is the result of hamlet's actions as well as his reactions to events that occur during the play. Some people argue that the character Hamlet is insane, while others may argue that his insanity can be justified by several means such as his need for justice of his father's murder. However, Hamlet's need for justice or revenge does not necessarily justify Hamlet's behavior in the play. In addition, Hamlet's behavior falls into several categories of insanity such as shizophrenia. Therefore, there are many ways in which it can be proven that hamlet may truly be insane.
It is here that one begins to see the theme of revenge and the idea that power can cause corruption. A family is supposed to be loyal and trusting of each other without any doubts; or so it was thought. Shakespeare uses Claudius’ betrayal of late King Hamlet to disprove the notion that family is always loyal. Claudius’ jealousy of his own brother and his desire to be the most powerful in Denmark corrupted him. It led him to betray his own family, a bond that is supposed to be unbreakable, and all the while feeling no guilt while acting as if he had not committed the crime. In addition to this, Claudius also takes late King Hamlet’s wife. Hamlet is enraged by the crime and adultery committed by his supposed family and feels he must seek justice for his father by taking out revenge on Claudius and therefore betraying him. Subsequently, the play becomes a slippery slope of events stemming from betrayal and revenge. The betrayal of one character became the revenge and betrayal of many others as seen when Horatio says, “… violent and unnatural acts, terrible accidents, casual murders, deaths caused by trickery and by threat, and finally murderous plans that backfired on their perpetrators,” showing that each act committed by the characters were returned back to them. This can be supported through the deaths of Claudius, Laertes, and Hamlet as these were just a
William Shakespeare is seen to many as one of the great writers in history. More specifically, the characters in his plays are reviewed and criticized and have been so for nearly four centuries. The character that many have revered Shakespeare for is perhaps the greatest such character ever in literature, Hamlet from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. The commentary and response to this legend of literature is of wide array and opinion, though most, such as Pennington, believe him to be a truly magnificent character: "Hamlet is perhaps the cleverest hero ever written, the subject of the first European tragedy, a form of genius. A type Shakespeare despaired of writing thereafter, having perceived that the heroes of tragedies must be sublime idiots" (185). However, despite his clear gifts and aura, Hamlet was a doomed character from the beginning: Hamlet is dominated by an emotion that is inexpressible. It is thus a feeling he cannot understand, he cannot objectify it, and it therefore remains open to poison life and to obstruct action" (Eliot 25). Thus, Hamlet, while possessing the traits of no other men of his time, a true Renaissance man, was doomed from the beginning of the play partly by forces he could not control, and also partly by his own character. It leads to a slow but definite ending to one of literature's great characters, one that he could not control. In the end, Hamlet was out of place in his environment, he was simply not meant to be.
Why do people crave power, fortune, and lust when all it leads to is corruption, greed, and/or death? In the play of Hamlet by William Shakespeare, one character's greed for power and fortune leads to tragedy. First, Claudius murders King Hamlet and attempts to kill prince Hamlet inorder to keep the crown to rule Denmark. Secondly, Claudius sets up a plan that involves putting a poisonous pearl in the winner's victory cup that eventually Gertrude drinks. He also puts poision on the tip of the sword that eventually kills Laertes in the duel. Lastly, Claudius sends Rosencranz & Guildenstern to escort Hamlet to England to secretly be killed so that he can keep the crown. One may object that Polonius' death was not the fault of Claudius' greed because Hamlet killed Polonius. However, Hamlet was obsessed with killing Claudius because he wanted to seek revenge for his father. Claudius' Greed for power is to blame for all the tragedies in the play Hamlet.
In the first place, he does not respect his mother and verbally hurts her by saying, “A horrible act- almost as bad, my good mother, a killing a king and marrying his brother.” (3.4 29-30) After that, Gertrude says, “O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart into twain.” However, Hamlet feels no shame and guilt about what he said and what he did to his dearest mother, showing he lacks conscience and responsibility. Furthermore, Hamlet says, “And so he goes to heaven, and so am I revenged. That would be scanned: A villain kills my father, and I, my father’s only son, send this same villain to heaven. Seems like I just did him a favor.” (3.3 75-79) He does not want to murder Claudius since he is thinking about sending him to the hell. Due to the revenge, he has become a man who is full of
In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, the main character, Hamlet, is often perceived by the other characters in the play as being mentally unbalanced because he acts in ways that drive them to think he is mad. Hamlet may very well be psychotic; however, there are times when he “feigns insanity” in order to unearth the truth surrounding his father's death. This plan seems to be going well until Hamlet's mental state slowly begins to deteriorate. What began as an act of insanity or antic disposition transitions from an act to a tragic reality. After studying Hamlet's actions, one will notice that as the play progresses, his feigned insanity becomes less and less intentional and devolves into true mental illness.
“Those who plot the destruction of others often fall themselves” (Phaedrus). This quote was said by a Roman fabulist and it depicts the entire concept of revenge in Hamlet. The nature of revenge causes someone to act upon anger rather than reason. Hamlet takes place in Denmark and is about Hamlet’s uncle who kills his dad to gain power of Denmark. After the killing, Hamlet seeks revenge on his uncle. In the play, there are several characters wanting vengeance like that of Hamlet. Throughout the play, Hamlet, Laertes, and Fortinbras all had a tragic death of a family member which caused their decision for revenge. Consequentially, these revenges caused the demise of two characters and the rise of power of another. The retaliation shown by the Prince of Denmark, as well as Laertes led to the downfall of their government.
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
In the opening of the play, Hamlet is confronted by the ghost of his father and told to revenge his "foul and most unnatural murder". Later on, however, Hamlet begins to doubt the ghost. He then thinks up the murder of Gonzago to verify the truthfulness of the ghost and also to allow himself more time. After learning the truth, Hamlet continues to procrastinate the killing of Claudius. Although Hamlet is full of purpose, he lacks the ability to carry out his intentions, and thus allows his character flaw to eventually destroy him.