Hamlet Tragic Hero Research Paper

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“Hamlet” is a classic revenge tale and is well known for the famous soliloquy “To be, or not to be” which best to describe Hamlet’s character. Set in Elsinore, Denmark during the late middle ages, the play tells the story of Hamlet, the prince of Demark, who is depressed because of the death of his father and is deeply upset about the hasty, incestuous remarriage of his mother and uncle. Hamlet is described as daring, brave, loyal, and intelligent but is he a tragic hero? In the fourth century B.C., the Greek philosopher Aristotle suggested a definition of a tragic hero, which best describes Hamlet. The first characteristic of a tragic hero identified by Aristotle is that a protagonist is a person of outstanding quality and high social …show more content…

In “Hamlet” there were three different occasion where Hamlet suffers from his flaw. The first time was Hamlet’s failure to commit suicide. In his famous soliloquy “To be, or not to be” (3.1.57-89) Hamlet is debating the thought of suicide, saying his life has lost all meaning but he ends up not killing himself because he fears the unknown after death and knows that it is forbidden in his religion. Next, was when Hamlet put on the play “Mousetrap”. The reason Hamlet put on this play was when his father’s ghost told him that Claudius murdered him, and Hamlet needed to avenge his death. At first, Hamlet doubted the ghost was real and decided to stage a play to confirm his suspicions about Claudius. This is an example of Hamlet failure to act because instead of killing Claudius quickly, he had to wait to be certain of the murder, which gave him an excuse to procrastinate. Lastly, Hamlet failed to act when he had a chance to kill Claudius when he was praying. Hamlet does not kill the king when he was praying because he believes that killing the king at this point will not be revenge for his father's death. If Claudius dies in prayer he will go straight to Heaven, unlike Hamlet's father. This is ironic because Hamlet could have finished his mission since the king was not really

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