Motif Of Revenge In Hamlet

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William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet deals with the motif of revenge. The murder of King Claudius is the result of Hamlet’s plan to avenge his father’s death. Hamlet’s vindictive attitude is resulted from an encounter between him and the ghost of his father, the reigning King of Denmark. Prince Hamlet was introduced to the play two months before his father’s death. At this time a ghost, described as his father was spotted in the castle making numerous amounts of visits in search for his son. Haratio, Hamlets close friend, and other Danish soldiers therefore brought the information of the mysterious ghost to the prince. They described the ghost as a king in an all armored suit with the characteristics of his father. Eventually the ghost …show more content…

In the play, the players were to act out the exact events that supposedly happened at the scene of the crime. “The play’s the thing where in I’ll catch the conscience of the king.” (Shakespeare 2.2.58). As Hamlet conducted the play he would look at Claudius’ reaction to the players. Deeper and deeper into the play as Hamlet continuously peeked over to Claudius he noticed how uncomfortable Claudius was getting as the events got more and more similar to him. This was evident in the way that the king conducted himself. Claudius’ initial reactions clearly showed how deeply guilty and nervous he was. After the climax of the play, when the poison was poured into the ear of the actor playing the king, Claudius proceeded to go into another room. It was now evident that the ghost was telling the truth and Prince Hamlet was obligated to seek revenge. There was now no doubt that Hamlet was going to seek revenge. Hamlet had to “Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder” (Shakespeare 1.5.7). Therefore Hamlet followed Claudius after he left the play. As Hamlet finally met with him in private as he wanted he was forced not to execute his plan at that very time because the king was praying. Although Hamlet wasn’t able to kill Claudius at that time he was still determined to finish the job that he was given so the first chance that he got, he was going to kill …show more content…

Claudius planned on Laertes killing the prince with that sword. Although the king had confidence in Laertes to finish off Hamlet, he also had another plan if Hamlet won the fight. King Claudius decided that if Hamlet was refusing defeat, he would drop poison into a cup, and tell everyone that it was a gem to congratulate Hamlet on his victories. After the first round Hamlet surprisingly was winning and the king immediately offered the cup for him to drink. Hamlet refused the drink and decided that he would drink after his next round. Before the next round started, Gertrude decided that she wanted a sip out of the cup. As Claudius and Laertes watched the queen drink the poison neither the king nor Laertes said anything because of the fright that everyone was going find out what was going on. They just watched the queen

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