Human nature dictates that every action, no matter how selfless it appears, is inspired by a selfish reason. Selfishness is a personality trait that every human has. Despite what people may believe, selfishness is a part of us and is the driving force behind decisions we make. According to the Oxford dictionary being selfish is being “concerned with one's own interests or pleasure.” People make decisions based on what they desire. They live as if the effect of their actions is non-important. All that matters is the benefits they will obtain even if they know that the end result can have negative consequences. Selfishness is all around us and without it there would be no motivation for humans to do anything. The extent of these selfish actions varies widely because it includes every action that humans make. They range from the mildly selfish action of doing voluntary work for a charity in order to "help society," but ultimately to give yourself the satisfaction of knowing you have done a good deed, to the extremely selfish action of taking something from someone for personal gain.
In Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, Shakespeare does a magnificent job at showing the readers how a man once of noble nature can fall so far into performing selfish actions. After Hamlet discovered the truth about his father’s death he feels the need for revenge. By becoming too involved in his pursuit, Hamlet’s actions proved that he was indeed selfish. In our opinion, we believe that Hamlet was selfish, rather than selfless in the play because while avenging his father’s murder, Hamlet is led down a road of self-protectiveness and cruelty, where he performs selfish actions on Ophelia due to his crafty madness and those in the Danish court involved in corrup...
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...ing wicked men. After Hamlet left the room Ophelia begins to state the difference in Hamlet’s behaviour “Oh, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!...../ That unmatched form and feature of blown youth/Blasted with ecstasy. Oh, woe is me/T' have seen what I have seen, see what I see!” (3.1.153-163). By Hamlet comparing his mother to Ophelia who was not involved in any of his mother’s actions, placed Ophelia in a sadden state as she fears she has lost that once noble Hamlet.
To conclude based on our three points; Hamlet murdering Polonius, his rude comments towards her and comparing Ophelia to Gertrude proves that Hamlet was selfish towards Ophelia. All of his actions were due to his selfishness. Hamlet performed these actions without thinking of the consequences that could offer. With Hamlet only thinking about himself, his actions resulted in the death of Ophelia.
In The Tragedy of Hamlet, Shakespeare developed the story of prince Hamlet, and the murder of his father by the king's brother, Claudius. Hamlet reacted to this event with an internal battle that harmed everyone around him. Ophelia was the character most greatly impacted by Hamlet's feigned and real madness - she first lost her father, her sanity, and then her life. Ophelia, obedient, weak-willed, and no feminist role model, deserves the most pity of any character in the play.
An understanding of William Shakespeare’s philosophies reinforces the meaning of the human condition found in the play Hamlet. The revenge tragedy is an example in the exploration of good versus evil, deceit, madness, inter-turmoil, and utter existence. Shakespeare, fascinated by the human mind and human nature, clearly and completely illustrates the meaning of “self.” Hamlet is a drama that examines one’s personal identity. From the beginning of the story atop the castle when the guards enter the platform to the conclusion of the performance as Hamlet lies, dying in Horatio’s arms every characters’ psychological type is
Selfishness is a disease of the soul that every person experiences several times throughout their life. To say that it has never been experienced would be hypocrisy. To say that it is a “good thing”, would be erroneous. Although as humans we like to lie to ourselves, it is no question that selfishness can make any person act like a fool. It consumes us and makes us into someone we are not. Whether it leads to getting people killed, falling in love, or buying alcohol, selfishness always leads to destruction.
First there is the killing of Polonius. When he kills Polonius, the father of his girlfriend, he shows no sign of regret. No guilt. He is so caught up in his own little world of revenge, he doesn't even think of the fact that he just killed an innocent old man and the father of Ophelia. In fact, there is no point in the entire text in which he even mentions Ophelia. This just goes to show that he doesn’t truly care about Ophelia, which as state is the necessary component of love. The second deciding scene is that of Ophelia’s funeral. Hamlet has gone the whole text since the play in act three scene two without a word about Ophelia. Then *bang* Ophelia is dead and he's seeing her funeral. He observes as a distraught Laertes, Ophelia’s brother, throws himself into her grave in grief. Hamlet’s response to this is not a of shared sorrow but of competition. He starts by saying to Laertes “I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers could not with all their quantity of love make up my sum” (5.1.284-287). Rather than just grieve for her, he fights with her grieving brother about who loved her more. While this may seem like a loving gesture, there has been no other proof of his love for her throughout the play which make this seem a bit strange. It is as if he wants to have loved her so that he can have emotions that are more important than everyone else’s. Hamlet even accuses Laertes of just trying “to outface” him “with leaping in her grave” (5.1.295). Hamlet would actually be grieve the lose of Ophelia and not fighting over whose emotions matter more if he had truly loved
Shakespeare portrays the protagonist, Hamlet, as someone with a great emotional and physical capacity for self-sacrifice. Burdened with a heroic task of avenging his father’s murder, Hamlet chooses to put on an “antic disposition”. This leads him to willingly transform his identity by altering his values, beliefs and his self-image. Hamlet also chooses to sacrifices true love for Ophelia, his right to freely express himself, and ultimately his life as well. Shakespeare shows how an individual, when burdened by a difficult task, will sacrifice anything including his own life for the purpose of fulfilling that goal.
Hamlet shows much anger and disrespect to the women in his life. Ophelia’s believing her father’s words breaks Hamlets heart, being the reason for his treatment towards not just her but his mother. Ophelia
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.
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
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...
Ophelia’s betrayal ends up putting Hamlet over the edge, motivating him in his quest for revenge. Ophelia is one of the two women in the play. As the daughter of Polonius, she only speaks in the company of several men, or directly to her brother or father. Since we never see her interactions with women, she suppresses her own thoughts in order to please her superiors. Yet, however weak and dependent her character is on the surface, Ophelia is a cornerstone to the play’s progression.
The insanity Hamlet adopted led to ruthlessness and errors of judgement as Hamlet was blinded by the revenge of his father. As Christina Autiero asserts in a paper given at a conference held in Westchester - Putnam School, “Blinded by [his] passions,...Hamlet indirectly causes the death of Ophelia and his mother...revenge and Hamlet’s method of madness primarily cause his death and actions. Unfortunately, the only approach [he] felt would vindicate [his] honorable name essentially destroyed [him]” (Autiero 53). Young Hamlet believed that the only choice to redeem his father was to murdering the murderer. In doing so, however, Hamlet became mad, and struck out at any and all who crossed his path. At one point in the play, Hamlet stabs Polonius, believing him to be King Claudius. And yet, no remorse is felt. In addition, Hamlet drives Ophelia, his lover, over the edge and leads her to suicide. Throughout the play, young Hamlet toys with her emotions, trying t...
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.
Hamlet puts on an antic disposition in the beginning act in order to prove Claudius’ guilt and avenge his father’s death, but as an audience we finally see how this “madness” affects other characters in later scenes. Most importantly one can see how this contrast not only affects, but also ends Ophelia’s life. Ophelia’s heart, that she believed was filled with love, is soon ripped into pieces when Hamlet acts mad and says, “I loved you not” (3.1.118). Later in the play, Ophelia finds out that not only has her father been murdered, but he was also killed by her own love, Hamlet. After this scene, Ophelia is lost and confused in emotions causing her to take action in the way she believes will benefit her best. This action includes taking her own life because she can no longer bear the pain of all the tragedies. As the queen describes this death she says, “Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,/ Pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay/ To muddy death” (2.7.181). These ironic moments again prove that the contrast in actuality and make-believe are crucial to the tragic ending of the play. In these moments, we feel pity and sorrow for Ophelia because we wonder if she had known the truth, would this have happened? Her desire to satisfy her own needs in this moment allow this tragedy to occur though; therefore, at the same time we wonder if the truth would have made a
Hamlet is more like a calculated, rational thinking, and intelligent character. In fact, his calculated thoughts begin to work against him. He uses his rational thinking, and hide behind the excuses instead of seeking unsympathetic revenge, and to kill Claudius the fake king. The evolution of Hamlet’s feelings toward revenge play an important role in the creation of this tragic flaw. Like from the beginning when he gains knowledge about his father’s death. The intense feel...
Hamlet is the best known tragedy in literature today. Here, Shakespeare exposes Hamlet’s flaws as a heroic character. The tragedy in this play is the result of the main character’s unrealistic ideals and his inability to overcome his weakness of indecisiveness. This fatal attribute led to the death of several people which included his mother and the King of Denmark. Although he is described as being a brave and intelligent person, his tendency to procrastinate prevented him from acting on his father’s murder, his mother’s marriage, and his uncle’s ascension to the throne.