How Hamlet Targets The Elizabethan Audience Essay

How Hamlet Targets The Elizabethan Audience
Many people may think of William Shakespeare’s work as very outdated and undecipherable, but in reality, his plays are a work of art. The remarkable Hamlet is one of his best known pieces, especially the famous “to be or not to be” (3.1.57) quote. Shakespeare did not just write Hamlet for entertainment, but to have the audience be able to relate to conflicts, death and overall human existence. Shakespeare targets the Elizabethan audience in a very specific way. The most interesting way that he made the content of this play more appealing was by having young Hamlet say his notorious soliloquies. One of the most important ones in this piece was “How all occasions do form against me” in act 4, scene

4. In this soliloquy, Hamlet targets the Elizabethan audience by using religious views, showing how greedy humans could be and expressing the importance of honour, hoping they reflect upon their current lives and make some changes to them.
One of the major ways in which Hamlet targets the Elizabethan audience is by using religious views. In the Elizabethan era, everyone was strictly religious, wether it was Catholic or Protestant.
“What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? A beast no more.
Sure he that made us with such large discousure,
Looking before and after gave us not
That capability and god like reasons
to fust in us unus’d?” (4.4.31-37)

Hamlet states that a man who only sleeps and eats is no better than an animal. He knows that many of the Elizabethans were like this because they were of higher social class and their lavish lifestyle allowed them to have everything done for them by other people. Because this nation of people was so religious and looked up to their religion greatly, Hamlet speaks about God to grasp their attention and make them feel guilty that they are not fulfilling their mission in this world. He says that every person is God’s creation and everyone has so much potential and so many things to offer, however, the audience do not use it. His intent is to make the audience look at their everyday lives, realize their worth and change their way of living for the better.
Because the Elizabethans were all high nobility, they had power. Hamlet speaks about Fortinbras leading an army of twenty thousand men to their death, and fighting for a useless piece of land.
“The imminent death of twenty thousand men,
That for a fantasy and trick of fame
Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot
Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
Which is not tomb enough and continent” (4.4.60-66)

Shakespeare is telling the audience that humans are greedy and selfish in nature, and even if they already have fame and power it is never enough; they are always striving for more.
Hamlet was a firm believer in honour and in doing what was right, hence why he contemplated every one of his moves whilst avenging his father’s death.

“Rightly to be great
not to sir without great argument
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honor’s at stake. How stand I then,
That have a father killed, a mother stained,
Excitements of my reason and my blood,
And let all sleep” (4.4.53-58)

Hamlet wants to persuade the Elizabethan audience into always making sure they do what they think is right and taking others into consideration. Because of their high status, these people had power over others and whatever they did had a great impact on their people. Others admired them and looked up to them. Hamlet tells them to be good leaders and to know that if the right decision is not made, it could result in leaving others in suffering and pain. He wants his audience to consider others while making decisions, and not always doing things to just benefit themselves.
Hamlet was written to target the Elizabethan audience in many ways. Using religious views, showing the cruelness of humans and speaking about the importance of honour shows them how they can change their lives. Hamlet was more of a thinker than a doer, and by contemplating revenge, existence and death, he connected with his

audience.