The Importance Of Death In Shakespeare's Hamlet

The preeminence of woe has the potential to devour the vivacity of oneself. This faring of one’s internal afflictions is embedded in Shakespeare’s illustrious tragedy of Hamlet, most notably through the ceaseless complexity of the protagonist. Through his timeless mastery over the intricacy of detail, Shakespeare propels Hamlet, inconsolably stricken with the matter of demise, through interminable depression thereby initiating his fabricated, subsequently candid, lunacy ultimately contributing to his utter ignorance and culmination of life in order to reveal the calamity bestowed in the excessive contemplation of decease. The progression of Hamlet’s irreconcilable grief is most prevalently perceived during the moments in which the audience

At this instant in the play, the audience perceives Hamlet in his most dismal hour. Although Hamlet often times refers back to the question of why he was chosen to lead this life, Hamlet, wishing to vanish from existence, never brings himself to such rashness. Although the depth of his misery is patently agonizing, Hamlet’s sorrow associated with the loss of his father may not be as deep-seated as Shakespeare initially depicts it to be. On numerous occasions, Shakespeare portrays Hamlet in a state of self-loathing in respect to the task his father’s spirit assigned to him. Although Hamlet is inarguably still grieving the loss of his father, a considerable portion of his grief then stems from his own reluctance to act. Although, undeniably, the centralization of his actions are around the vengeance of his father’s death, through the murder of Claudius, Hamlet’s hesitancy to act furthermore portrays his grief within himself. Despite being given numerous opportunities to execute his sole task,

In his preparations for the murder of Claudius, Hamlet, after confiding in his father’s ghost, consciously decides to portray an act of lunacy in order to dissuade his peers from suspecting him of wrongdoing. Shakespeare explicitly conveys Hamlet’s intentions in the line, “How strange or odd some’er I bear myself as I perchance hereafter shall think meet to put an antic disposition on” (I, v, 190-192). Hamlet’s cognizant, rather ingenious, decision to appear mad demonstrates his bona fide sanity in the face of his antithesis affectation. However, as the play progresses, the audience’s awareness of Hamlet’s sanity becomes obscured. To begin, the audience must consider the extensive tragedy he has undergone in an ephemeral period of time. In addition to the loss of his father, he has witnessed the, what he recalls as wrongful, union of his mother and uncle. Furthermore, Hamlet, being a student of philosophy, has seen his father’s spirit, an event that defies all logic. Thus, Hamlet, being detached from his family and the veracity of science, is ridden of reason thereby qualifying the concept of his lunacy being genuine. Although his clever wit remains unscathed, his judgment wanes. This is most evidently seen in Hamlet’s unintentional murder of Polonius. Assuming Polonius was Claudius eavesdropping on his conversation with his mother, Hamlet rashly speared the