Hamlet Foreshadowing Analysis

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The grave digger is put in the story in order to ease the tension and dramatic seriousness of the play and seen as a comic relief because of how he is introduced as a clown and accompanied by another clown, the fact that a clown is digging up a grave and singing while he is doing it, and he broadens the themes of the story be introducing irony, gives foreshadowing to the ending of the play and uses imagery and personification to help give a deeper and more meaningful understanding of what is happening. With a title of “grave digger” many assumptions could be made on what kind of being this person is. The fact it is immediately revealed that this being is a clown and he has another clown with him at the very beginning of Act V is very comical …show more content…

This adds the theme of irony into the play because clowns are associated with laughter and happiness, yet here are two clowns that are talking about how they are going to dig up a grave for a woman’s body. Then the clown proceeds to sing and throw the skull of the deceased out of its burial place. Another element in the play that could help give a broader meaning to it is foreshadowing. The foreshadowing that happens in this play could be interpreted as what happens to the main character, Hamlet . When the second skull is thrown up, on line 141 Hamlet picks up the skull, “[Takes skull.] “This?”” He continues to hold the skull and talk to Clown and Horatio until line 154 where he throws it back onto the ground. “”And smelt so? Pah!” [Throws down the skull.]”. In the beginning of the act, the clowns only mention a single woman to be dug up, yet the clown finds two skulls in the burial ground where the said woman is. The second skull could represent Hamlet's death at the end of the play. Imagery and personification are used in this scene as a way to broaden and deepen the understanding of what is happening. The song that the clown sings is clearly about death with singing, “But age, with his stealing steps, Hath clawed me in his clutch, And hath shipped me into the land, As if I had never been such.” He refers to age as a “he” in the song, the clown is describing something that does not physically exist as a he. The …show more content…

This was done through grave digger himself was a clown and was accompanied by another clown, the clown sang a song about death and burial as he was digging up remains and somehow finding and throwing out two skulls, and used irony, foreshadowing, imagery, and personification to give the best possible understanding of what was happening in this scene and what would later be happening in the

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