Siri Potluri
Mrs. Newberry
AP Lit- 2B
20 February 2018
Hamlet Acts I-III Socratic Seminar
Interpret how Hamlet’s commentary about mankind in his soliloquies deteriorates his character.
O, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself too dew” (Act 1, Scene 1, Lines 133-134).
“Within a month, ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears had left the flushing in her gallèd eyes, she married” (Act 1, Scene 2, Lines 158-161).
“For who would bear the whips and scorns of time… But that the dread of something after death” (Act 3, Scene 1, Lines 71-79).
“Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, and thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought” (Act 3, Scene 1, Lines 84-86).
Hamlet has been
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This visitation is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose” (Act 3, Scene 4, Lines 126-127).
“But I’ll delve one yard below their mines and blow them to the moon. O’tis so sweet when in one line two crafts directly meet” (Act 3, Scene 4, Lines 231-233)
Hamlet becomes consumed in his revenge plot and feels that his mother should be punished for marrying his uncle.
Hamlet also feels his childhood friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, should be punished for “manipulating” him and lying to him.
Hamlet begins to enjoy hurting his mother and friends, making him a villainous character.
Shakespeare's uses this opportunity to comment that revenge harms more people than the punishable act itself. Hamlet is becoming villainous and lost in madness because he has blurred the distinction between justice and revenge.
Evaluate the irony behind Hamlet's madness and how it establishes the motif of lies and deceit. “Excellent well. You are a fishmonger” (Act 2, Scene 2, Line 186).
“I loved you not” (Act 3, Scene 1, Line 129).
“Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me!” (Act 3, Scene 2, Lines 393-394).
“[Do not let the king] Make you to ravel all this matter out: That I essentially am not in madness But mad in craft” (Act 3, Scene 4, Lines
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This is ironic because Hamlet is hurt from the spying and lying but ends up hurting other people the same way.
Similarly, Hamlet becomes angry with his childhood friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, because he believes they are lying to him, but he is keeping the hides the truth about his father’s death away from them.
Hamlet is angry at all the lies and deceit that he was blind to before. The ghost revealed that his mother had an affair with his uncle and that his father was murdered by Claudius, and Hamlet’s goal is for his mother to repent for her faults and avenge his father.
Hamlet abandons his value of integrity to deceive everyone of his madness. While avenging his father and punishing his uncle and mother for their crimes, Hamlet ends up committing his own crimes of deceit and manipulation and hurting more people than originally planned.
Characterize Claudius based on his soliloquy in Act III and how he adds to Shakespeare’s social commentary.
“It hath the primal eldest curse upon ’t, A brother’s murder” (Act 3, Scene 3, Lines
conflicts will likely arise, it is important to remember we can learn and grow from these
Assignment 1: Explication from Hamlet (1.3.111-137) (“My lord, he hath importuned me with love” … [end of scene].
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.
Contrary to what the ghost tells Hamlet, he still wishes to make the queen feel bad and he does so by calling her a harlot and using cruel words. Also, Hamlet is determined to seek revenge on those who go against him such as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. He knows they aren't truly his friends anymore and are secretly working for Claudius. Due to this, he feels no remorse for sending them to their deaths in England by changing Claudius’ orders to the King of England. Hamlet is glad that they received their punishment for their traitorous
Vengeance, redemption, and desire plague Denmark’s royal family in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet after a haunting family secret forces Prince Hamlet to choose between morality and honor. After Hamlet’s father dies, the kingdom hastily adjusts to his uncle Claudius’ reign; however, Hamlet remains devastated and loyal to his father. When his father’s ghost unveils that Claudius poisoned King Hamlet, the prince’s devastation mixes with a fervent desire for revenge that eventually dictates his every thought. Despite being ostensibly committed to avenging his father’s death, Hamlet habitually discovers reasons to delay action. As Hamlet’s procrastination persists, his familial relations deteriorate and ultimately cause him to reevaluate his position in society. Furthermore, Hamlet becomes chronically paranoid and calculates each aspect of his plan; therefore, the audience doubts his ability to successfully exact revenge. This paranoia escalates exponentially and fuels an uncontrollable obsession with perfection that usurps his sanity. Although Hamlet remains devoted to his murdered father, his perpetual procrastination eventually leads to mental degeneration through decaying relationships, prompting incessant paranoia, and fostering uncontrollable obsessions.
In Hamlet Prince of Denmark young Hamlet is left facing the outcomes of the conflict his father had with his brother. Old Hamlet is dead, killed by his own brother for the thrown of Denmark. Young Hamlet is in deep morning over the loss of his father and now he has to handle the remarriage of his mother to his own uncle, the man who in cold blood killed his father. Hamlet, with the death of his father, is acting strangely but his whole outlook changes for the worst when his father's ghost visits him. He finds out the true causes of his death and he is influenced by his father to seek revenge. Hamlet's father tells his son to kill his uncle, Claudius because he is the cause of his death. Hamlet loved his father deeply and would do anything for him. He becomes enraged with anger and hate for Claudius and begins to plot his revenge, Claudius' own death. Throughout the play his father's ghost visits Hamlet. Even after his death he has a great control over his son and his actions. These visits are a constant reminder to Hamlet of the truth. Knowing the truth of his father's death has driven Hamlet to the brink of insanity. The only thing he can think of is revenge. His father's death and prior conflict with his brother has left Hamlet in a position of honoring his father and doing right by him, and the only thing he sees fit to do is rid himself of the man that brought about the anger Hamlet is feeling. In the end Hamlet finally gets the revenge he sought with the death of Claudius.
Being the primary character, there is a greater focus on Hamlet’s pursuit of revenge, since throughout the play his mind and actions plagued by both uncertainty and angry notions towards his mother’s infidelity rather than the “murder most foul”. Unlike both Laertes and Fortinbras, Hamlet's desire for revenge is not implanted by his own will but rather by his father’s ghost; through his encounter the ghost pleads his son’s loyalty by promising the murder Claudius. Initially Hamlet's interaction with the Ghost was one of curiosity and glee which opposes his prior melanch...
As illustrated through his speeches and soliloquies Hamlet has the mind of a true thinker. Reinacting the death of his father in front of Claudius was in itself a wonderful idea. Although he may have conceived shcemes such as this, his mind was holding him back at the same time. His need to analyze and prove everythin certain drew his time of action farther and farther away. Hamlet continuously doubted himself and whether or not the action that he wanted to take was justifiable. The visit that Hamlet recieves from his dead father makes the reader think that it is Hamlet's time to go and seek revenge. This is notthe case. Hamlet does seem eager to try and take the life of Claudius in the name of his father, but before he can do so he has a notion, what if that was not my father, but an evil apparition sending me on the wrong path? This shows that even with substantial evidence of Claudius' deeds, Hamlet's mind is not content.
Hamlet is a bitter tragedy of revenge and deceit. Unbeknownst to Hamlet, his father, the king of Denmark, is murdered by his own brother, Claudius — who then marries the queen and assumes the throne. Hamlet is visited by his father’s ghost, who compels him to enact revenge upon his uncle — but spare his mother. Hamlet finally decides to stage a play in which there is a poisoning scene, meant to stir his uncle into panic. Hamlet’s plan is successful, but he, in a fit of rage, accidentally...
Taking revenge against his enemy can be a difficult task for young Hamlet, especially when the circumstances and conditions he is under require him to reevaluate his morals of life and soul. The delay in Hamlet’s revenge of his father’s death is caused by three main reasons: he is under strict and almost impossible guidelines laid out by the ghost of his father, King Hamlet, he is afraid of death either suffering it or inflicting it on someone else, and his lack of reasoning in committing a murder that he did not witness himself. When the ghost of King Hamlet first appears to young Hamlet, he injunctions three requirements he needs Hamlet to act upon. Revenge his father’s death, do not emotionally affect his mother, Gertrude, with the killing of her new husband, Claudius, and to not let himself go insane by trying to accomplish these vital tasks. Hamlet is bewildered, overwhelmed, and shocked with what the ghost of his father told him, and responds with, “haste me to know’t, that I, with wings as swift as mediation or the thoughts of love, may sweep to my revenge” (1.5.29-31).
One of the most popular characters in Shakespearean literature, Hamlet endures difficult situations within the castle he lives in. The fatal death of his father, and urge for revenge leads Hamlet into making unreasonable decisions. In William Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, Hamlet’s sanity diminishes as the story progresses, impacting the people around him as well as the timing and outcome of his revenge against Claudius.
In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, revenge is a common theme throughout the play. Almost every major male character in the play, whether it is Prince Hamlet, Laertes, the Ghost of King Hamlet, or King Fortinbras of Norway, is acting with purpose to avenge a death. The obvious exception to this trend in the play is Claudius, King of Denmark and brother of King Hamlet. Instead of possessing a noble or vengeful purpose throughout the play, Claudius is instead motivated by more evil qualities like his greed and deceptive natures. But despite his solidified role as the antagonist to Prince Hamlet, Claudius’ degree of true villainy is more so in question. Claudius shows traits that stray from traditional idea of a heartless, animal-like villain working for evil, while also representing villainous qualities of the foulest kinds that ultimately overpower his humane soul. This complexity in Claudius’ character helps Shakespeare transcend the traditional villain.
Hamlet’s attachment to his mother is quickly made evident within the first act of the famous tragedy. Hamlet, who sulks around wearing black clothing to mourn the death of his father, first speaks in the play to insult his stepfather. He voices his distaste at his new relationship with his uncle by criticizing that they are, “A little more than kin and less than kind” (I.ii.65). He believes that it...
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
Engaging the Elizabethans - Hamlet Essay The concept of revenge is utilized in both the old and the new when it comes to literature. In regards to Hamlet, written by none other than William Shakespeare, this theme is recurring and plays a major role in the protagonist’s soliloquy in Act IV scene iv (lines 31-66). The Elizabethan audience is targeted by the lengthy soliloquy as it reflects social, economic and cultural ideals. It is important to have such an effect as a playwright, as it shapes the perspectives of its viewers.