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Element of tragedy in hamlet
Insight into Hamlet's characters
Elements of tragedy of hamlet
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In today’s modern society, hardly people go around killing other people just to get back revenge, but in the novel, “Hamlet”, written by William Shakespeare, it is a constant thing to go around stabbing people to avenge someone else’s death. This book is all about tragedy, because there are so many deaths that happened at the end of the story. . There are many different schemes in “Hamlet”, for example, Prince Hamlet to King Claudius and King Claudius against Prince Hamlet; these two schemes also contain the same similarities with one another.
The first scheme in the book, “Hamlet”, is Prince Hamlet to King Claudius to revenge his father’s death and to find out if Claudius is guilty; to prove that Hamlet uses a play to testify his theory.
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Claudius found out that Hamlet knew he had murdered his father and is plotting against him, so now Claudius is coming up with ideas to end his life in the most low profile way as possible. Claudius does want people to know that he is trying to purposely kill Prince Hamlet, because the people of Denmark love him and Claudius does not want them to turn against him. The King’s first plan was to send Hamlet to England and have Rosencrantz and Guildenstern destroy him, but quickly failed when Hamlet was captured by pirates just to be let free and is now returning back to Denmark. The second idea was to have a poisoned sword cut him making Hamlet die instantly and if that did not work, then the third idea was to offer him a poisonous drink for a sudden death. “‘When in your motion you are hot and dry’ ‘(As make your bouts more violent to that end)’ ‘And that he calls for drink, I’ll have prepared him”’ (Shakespeare, pg 233, lines 179-183). The second plan was to have, Laertes fence with Hamlet and stab him with the poisoned sword. If that failed, then Claudius was going to give Hamlet a poisonous drink when he would get dehydrated from fencing and would need a beverage. All of Claudius’s plans backfired on him, even though Hamlet had been cut by the poisoned sword he still managed to stab Laertes also with the poison sword. Hamlet’s mother, Queen Gertrude, drank the poisoned cup and warned …show more content…
“‘The point envenomed too! Then, venom, to thy work’ ‘Drink off this potion”’ (Shakespeare, pg 281, lines 352-357). In the first scheme, Prince Hamlet was trying to kill King Claudius due to the King murdering Hamlet’s deceased father and the outcome was a success, because Prince Hamlet actually did proceed with the actions of murdering King Claudius; slashing him across his neck with the poisoned sword and forcing him to drink the poisoned cup. “‘My lord, I’ll hit him now’ ‘Have at you now!’ ‘Laertes wounds Hamlet’” (Shakespeare, pg 279, lines 322-331). Also, in the second scheme, King Claudius was plotting to execute Prince Hamlet, because Hamlet found out about Claudius killing his father and have been planning to revenge the late King Hamlet; the outcome was Hamlet slowly dies from a poisonous cut soon leading to his final breath. Finally, these two schemes consist of the same similarities, because they share the same motivation and outcome, which is killing for the motivation and death for the
In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, the theme of revenge is very palpable as the reader examines the characters of Hamlet himself, as well as Laertes, son of Polonius, and Fortinbras, prince of Norway and son of the late King Fortinbras. Each of these young characters felt the need to avenge the deaths of their fathers who they felt were untimely killed at the bloody hands of their murderers. However, the way each chose to go about this varies greatly and gives insight into their characters and how they progress throughout the play.
As well as Hamlet is giving clues to Claudius, that Hamlet knows who killed his father. Hamlet asks for a play that gives the same story line to scare his uncle. This is a tactic to send not only Hamlet into insanity but also Claudius. The tactic of the play works Claudius is fearful of what Hamlet knows about the murder of King Hamlet. Prince Hamlet is now fearful of everyone that is proximate to him. Hamlet cerebrates that everyone is out to get him. Hamlet even endeavors to verbalize to his mother to convince her that Claudius killed King Hamlet. Even when Hamlet tells Gertrude, it is as though she thinks Hamlet is making it up. Claudius is victualing into Hamlet 's suspicion by sending people to Hamlet and ascertain what he knows. This makes Hamlet not trust anyone that he knows.
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 Shakespeare is able to use revenge in an extremely skillful way that gives us such deep insight into the characters. It is an excellent play that truly shows the complexity of humans. You can see in Hamlet how the characters are willing to sacrifice t...
After several attempts to kill Hamlet fail, Claudius teams up with Laertes and tries to murder Hamlet once and for all. Each of these plans directly or indirectly caused Hamlet’s death. After Hamlet talks to the ghost of his father, he finds out that Claudius killed him to gain the throne of Denmark. Hamlet has to get revenge by killing Claudius. To do this, he must act insane to draw away suspicion from himself. Hamlet says to Hortaio "How strange or odd some’er I bear myself as I perchanse hereafter shall think meet to put an antic disposition on,"(I;v;170-172).
With his thinking mind Hamlet does not become a typical vengeful character. Unlike most erratic behavior of individuals seeking revenge out of rage, Hamlet considers the consequences of his actions. What would the people think of their prince if he were to murder the king? What kind of effect would it have on his beloved mother? Hamlet considers questions of this type which in effect hasten his descision. After all, once his mother is dead and her feelings out of the picture , Hamlet is quick and aggressive in forcing poison into Claudius' mouth. Once Hamlet is certain that Claudius is the killer it is only after he himself is and and his empire falling that he can finally act.
Hamlet completely revolves around revenge. Revenge is getting payback for something that affected oneself. Hamlet wants revenge of Claudius for killing his father, and Laertes wants to seek revenge on hamlet for killing his. Revenge in the story pushes the plot forward as Hamlet tries to kill Claudius throughout the whole novel, which causes many tragedies. Vengeance causes the characters in Hamlet to act blindly through anger and emotion, rather than through reason leading to the massacre of the entire family.
Throughout Hamlet, each character’s course of revenge surrounds them with corruption, obsession, and fatality. Shakespeare shows that revenge proves to be extremely problematic. Revenge causes corruption by changing an individual’s persona and nature. Obsession to revenge brings forth difficulties such as destroyed relationships. Finally, revenge can be the foundation to the ultimate sacrifice of fatality. Hamlet goes to show that revenge is never the correct route to follow, and it is always the route with a dead
Claudius deals with his problems differently than Macbeth. Claudius does not kill Hamlet right away when he first learned of his crime but waited to see if he was a big enough threat to kill off. Claudius even has the chance to jail Hamlet when he kills Polonium, but he doesn’t. Eventually Claudius exiles Hamlet to England to have him be killed. Unlike Macbeth, Claudius does not kill without reason.
Revenge is a recurring theme in Hamlet. Although Hamlet wants to avenge his father’s death, he is afraid of what would result from this. In the play Hamlet, Hamlet’s unwillingness to revenge appears throughout the text; Shakespeare exhibits this through Hamlet’s realization that revenge is not the right option, Hamlet‘s realization that revenge is the same as the crime which was already committed, and his understanding that to revenge is to become a “beast” and to not revenge is as well (Kastan 1).
Both men plot, and kill, but before acting they take a great deal of time to think about their actions. Hamlet likes to set up and get everything right before acting on his suspicions or ideas. He thinks about how his actions will affect everyone and this is because of the substantial amount of common sense he has. Before killing Claudius, he came up with a plan to take him down and exploit him for killing his father. He knows that he cannot just kill him right away because people will be confused and blame Hamlet, so he plans to crack him first. He puts on a play portraying a young man poisoning his uncle, which riles Claudius because he poisoned Hamlet’s father. By putting on the play Hamlet alerted Claudius about how much he knew which scared Claudius. Hamlet goes on to a more elaborate plan to act “mad” which instills much fear into Claudius because he thinks Hamlet now poses as a threat to him which is what Hamlet wants. Claudius’ reaction to Hamlet’s madness is shown when he...
There are many plots and schemes throughout Hamlet but one that is very obvious is found in Act I, Scene 5 of the play. Hamlet seeks revenge for his father's death,he decides these actions after visiting his father's ghost.When Hamlet sees the ghost of his father, the ghost describes something very shocking to Hamlet. The ghost reveals how his Father was actually murdered, hew as murdered by his own Uncle, Claudius. Hamlet also finds out from the ghost that he should seek revenge on Claudius. Hamlet believes that's exactly what he should do, therefore sets out to seek revenge. In Act 2, scene 2 Hamlet analyzes Claudius's reaction to the the tale of Pyrrhus and Priam, which is when his fathers murder is revealed on stage for everyone attending
From this play we learn of the difficulty associated with taking a life as Hamlet agonises as to how and when he should kill Claudius and furthermore whether he should take his own life. Hamlet being a logical thinker undergoes major moral dilemma as he struggles to make accurate choices. From the internal conflict that the playwright expresses to us it is evident that it can kill someone, firstly mentally then physically. The idea of tragedy is explored in great detail through conflict where the playwright’s main message is brought across to the audience; Shakespeare stresses to his audience the point that conflict be it internal or external it can bring upon the downfall of great people and in turn have them suffer a tragic fate. It is Shakespeare’s aim to show us the complexity of man and that moral decisions are not easily made.
Hamlet is one of Shakespeare’s most well-known tragedies. At first glance, it holds all of the common occurrences in a revenge tragedy which include plotting, ghosts, and madness, but its complexity as a story far transcends its functionality as a revenge tragedy. Revenge tragedies are often closely tied to the real or feigned madness in the play. Hamlet is such a complex revenge tragedy because there truly is a question about the sanity of the main character Prince Hamlet. Interestingly enough, this deepens the psychology of his character and affects the way that the revenge tragedy takes place. An evaluation of Hamlet’s actions and words over the course of the play can be determined to see that his ‘outsider’ outlook on society, coupled with his innate tendency to over-think his actions, leads to an unfocused mission of vengeance that brings about not only his own death, but also the unnecessary deaths of nearly all of the other main characters in the revenge tragedy.