Tragic hero, two words that imply the inevitable fate and an extremely destructive flaw. Hamlet is plagued by his emotional distress. His father just died, his mother not only remarried in two months time but did so to his uncle. His pain is so tangible it almost jumps at the audience. They feel his pain and sorrow when his father dies, his anguish when his mother remarries, and his unbearable need to avenge his father's death that is amplified by his hubris or arrogant pride. Hamlet carries the secret of knowing his father was murdered by his uncle, and that stress can be felt by the audience. Hamlet often contemplates suicide, tugging on the mental and emotional thoughts of the readers. His emotions grasp the audience, the tragic downfall …show more content…
Hamlet has no problem speaking what is on his mind, even if it is hurtful and crude. He is especially crude toward his mother because of her incestuous behavior. He shames her about it many times throughout the play. Readers can feel his anger toward her through his many insults. "She married. O, most wicked speed, to post With such dexterity to incestuous sheets" (act 1, scene 2, lines 161-162), meaning she wasted no time marrying his uncle and he abhors that. He is so disgusted he even contemplates killing her. He once said "I will speak daggers to her, but use none" (Act 3, Scene 2, Line 429). He is admitting he absolutely loathes her decision so much that he wants to murder her but will not. Instead, he throws insults at her without thinking twice about …show more content…
This thought gives readers a sense of how deep Hamlet’s pain is. Hamlet's madness does not go unnoticed by other characters in Hamlet. Both Polonius and King Claudius try to seek the cause of his ailment. Claudius says, "it shall be so madness in great ones must not unwatched go" (Act 3, Scene 1, Line 202). He knows that Hamlet's emotions can have consequences that could release havoc in Elsinore so he plans to send him away which does not eliminate the problems. Instead, his plan amplifies and expedites the downfall of
Hamlet is one of the most controversial characters from all of the Shakespeare’s play. His character is strong and complicated, but his jealousy is what conduces him to hate women. He sees them as weak, frail, and untrustworthy. He treats Ophelia, the women he loves, unfair and with cruelty. Similarly, he blames his mother for marrying her dead husband’s brother, who is now the King of Denmark. Hamlet’s treatment for women stems from his mother’s impulsive marriage to his uncle who he hates and Ophelia choosing her father’s advice over him.
One of the most emotional and moving scenes in William Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet is in Act III, Scene I lines 90-155 in which the title character becomes somewhat abusive toward his once loved girlfriend Ophelia. It is interesting to examine the possible motives behind Hamlet's blatant harshness in this "Get the to a nunnery" scene toward the easily manipulated and mild mannered girl. While watching Kenneth Branagh and Mel Gibson's film adaptations of the play, the audience may recognize two possibilities of the many that may exist which may explain the Prince's contemptible behavior; Kenneth Branaugh seems to suggest that this display of animosity will help the troubled man convince his enemies that he is in fact demented, whereas the Mel Gibson work may infer that Hamlet's repressed anger toward his mother causes him to "vent" his frustrations upon Ophelia, the other female of importance in his life.
When Hamlet’s mother remarries to Claudius, her husband’s murderer, Hamlet is disgusted that she could move on so quickly. He’s also disturbed over the fact that his Uncle could kill his own brother, and then marry his brother’s widow. This “incestu...
Hamlet’s behaviour towards Ophelia and other women in Act 3, Scene 1 could be characterized as rude and insulting because he is expressing suppressed emotions of hatred towards his mother. Hamlet feels his mother has been unfaithful and incestuous when she married his uncle and because of this, begins to take his anger out on other women. Earlier in the play, Hamlet was so ashamed of his mother that he had pronounced a curse on all women; “Frailty, thy name is women!”(1.2.147), and this is why Hamlet acted the way he did towards Ophelia. Hamlet attacks Ophelia with many blunt put-downs, one of the them s...
In the modern day, William Shakespeare’s tragedy plays fascinate readers by highlighting characters’ flaws that lead them to their downfall. In the play Hamlet, William Shakespeare demonstrates the characters’ flaws make individuals victims of their own. According to Aristotle
Oddly, it appears that Gertrude possess more significance to Hamlet than one first anticipates. Her swift call to matrimony leads Hamlet into a spiraling quarry of depression and grieving. This mirrors the Oedipus complex. Gertrude sexually commits herself to Claudius causing Hamlet to feel a sense of jealousy and disappointment. In retaliation, he expresses his repressed desire of love through his unruly comments. He even goes as far as to say that the love is incestuous. Furthermore, in Act 3 scene 4, Hamlet confronts his mother directly in a closet. Addressing concern over her sexual actions, he exclaims “In the rank sweat of an enseamèd bed, / Stewed in corruption, honeying and making love / Over the nasty sty” (III.iv.104-106). Not only does this quote show that Hamlet disapproves his mother’s marriage, but also that he believes Claudius is a wicked criminal. Aligning with the Oedipus complex, Hamlet strangely obsesses over his mother’s love life while viewing his uncle in
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 myslef as I perchanse hereafter shall think meet to put an antic dispostion on,"(I;v;170-172), this indicates that from this moment Hamlet will act insane. He believes this way he will be able to kill the king and get away with it. Polonius becomes aware of Hamlet’s madness and wants to uncover the reason behind it. He says "Mad let us grant him then, and now remains, that we find out the cause of this defect, for this effect defective comes by cause."(II;ii;100-103). Claudius and Polonius spy on Hamlet and Ophelia as they talk. After hearing their conversation Claudius says "And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose will be some danger; which for to prevent, I have in quick determination thus set it down: he shall with speed to England"(III;i;163-166). This means that Claudius is starting to believe Hamlet is dangerous and wants to send him to England. From this point Claudius is very suspicious of Hamlet, he suspects that Hamlet is plotting against him, he says, "Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.
Is someone’s ultimate fate based on their actions? In William Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, this seems to be the case. Hamlet is a distressed young man with a desire to get revenge for his father’s murder. He eventually gets what he wants, but it comes at a great cost. Although Hamlet’s sanity is questionable throughout the play, his eventual downfall is an explicit result of his absence of fortitude and ambition in avenging his father’s death.
How does the average person act when it comes to a time of great distraught? Certainly not like Hamlet. Hamlet in the story displays many ways in how he is in distraught after he learn about the death of his father. Hamlet becomes a victim of fate in the events that follow in his life after the ghost of his dead father appears. At the same time he's a tragically flawed hero who can't always bring himself to perform the actions he wants to and backing out by rethinking his scenario.
Webster’s dictionary defines tragedy as, “a serious drama typically describing a conflict between the protagonist and a superior force (such as destiny) and having a sorrowful or disastrous conclusion that excites pity or terror.” A tragic hero, therefore, is the character who experiences such a conflict and suffers catastrophically as a result of his choices and related actions. The character of Hamlet, therefore, is a clear representation of Shakespeare’s tragic hero.
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...
for a person of lowly rank that loses his or her fortune or rank than
Hamlet's fatal flaw is his inability to act. Unlike his father, Hamlet lets his intelligence rather than his heroism govern him. When he has a chance to kill Claudius, and take vengeance for his father's murder, he hesitates, reckoning that if he kills the man while he is at prayer, Claudius would have asked for pardon from the Lord and been forgiven of his sins, therefore allowing him to enter Heaven. Hamlet decides to wait for a better opening. His flaw of being hesitant in the end leads to his own death, and also the deaths of Gertrude, Ophelia, Laertes, and Claudius.
Hamlet is one of the most often-performed and studied plays in the English language. The story might have been merely a melodramatic play about murder and revenge, butWilliam Shakespeare imbued his drama with a sensitivity and reflectivity that still fascinates audiences four hundred years after it was first performed. Hamlet is no ordinary young man, raging at the death of his father and the hasty marriage of his mother and his uncle. Hamlet is cursed with an introspective nature; he cannot decide whether to turn his anger outward or in on himself. The audience sees a young man who would be happiest back at his university, contemplating remote philosophical matters of life and death. Instead, Hamlet is forced to engage death on a visceral level, as an unwelcome and unfathomable figure in his life. He cannot ignore thoughts of death, nor can he grieve and get on with his life, as most people do. He is a melancholy man, and he can see only darkness in his future—if, indeed, he is to have a future at all. Throughout the play, and particularly in his two most famous soliloquies, Hamlet struggles with the competing compulsions to avenge his father’s death or to embrace his own. Hamlet is a man caught in a moral dilemma, and his inability to reach a resolution condemns himself and nearly everyone close to him.
The tragedy of Hamlet, Shakespeare’s most popular and greatest tragedy, presents his genius as a playwright and includes many numbers of themes and literary techniques. In all tragedies, the main character, called a tragic hero, suffers and usually dies at the end. Prince Hamlet is a model example of a Shakespearean tragic hero. Every tragedy must have a tragic hero. A tragic hero must own many good traits, but has a flaw that ultimately leads to his downfall. If not for this tragic flaw, the hero would be able to survive at the end of the play. A tragic hero must have free will and also have the characteristics of being brave and noble. In addition, the audience must feel some sympathy for the tragic hero.