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Shakespeare was one of England’s most accomplished playwrights (Fiero 27). Shakespeare has always been able to transform the most controversial of characters and make the audience feel deep sympathy and compassion towards them. He does this for example in his play Hamlet (Oakes 68). Hamlet displays the ideals of the Renaissance through his indecisiveness and uncertainty much like the Catholics who questioned their religious beliefs.
Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a true depiction of the indistinctiveness of beliefs after the Reformation. After the murder of his father, King Hamlet, Prince Hamlet sees his father’s ghost. His father’s ghost tells Hamlet he must avenge his death (Fiero 27). He also reveals to Hamlet that it was his Uncle Claudius that committed the crime against him. He explains to Hamlet that he must in deed inflict the same crime upon Claudius. After Claudius murdered King Hamlet he became heir to the throne and married Prince Hamlet’s mother Gertrude (Fiero 27).
Hamlet is unsure of the reality of seeing his father’s ghost. After the Reformation the existence of a Purgatory was in question. This is displayed through Hamlets attempt to grasp the idea of seeing his father’s ghost. He was hesitant about avenging his father’s death because he wasn’t sure if the ghost was actually his father in Purgatory or the devil playing tricks with his mind (Oakes 62).
Edward T. Oakes discusses Hamlet’s confusion between Catholicism and Lutheran practices. Hamlet was taught to believe that Purgatory is nonexistent. However, the ghost enables Hamlet’s confusion and reveals to him that Purgatory does in fact exist (Oakes 63). The ghost comes to Hamlet and exclaims :
“I am thy father’s spirit, doom’d for a certain term...
... middle of paper ...
...licted person. Shakespeare used Hamlet as an inside look at the ideals of the Protestant Reformation. For example the Reformation brought about questions and changes of how people viewed the afterlife and salvation. Shakespeare used a character such as Hamlet to invite people in to understand the struggles someone as troubled as him to keep from passing judgment based on an outside view alone.
Works Cited
Fiero, Gloria. The Humanistic Tradition: The Early Modern World To Present. Vol 2, 6th ed.
New York: McGraw-Hill, 2011.
Oakes, Edward T. "Hamlet and the Reformation." Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought &
Culture 13.1 (2010): 53-78. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 22 Oct. 2010.
Petition, By Laboursome. "Hamlet: Entire Play." The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.
Web. 21 Oct. 2010. .
Kay, Karen. “Concepts of Heaven, Hell and Purgatory in Hamlet.” Shakespeare Online Study Tools. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 May 2014. .
Throughout his whole internal and external struggles, Hamlet continued to follow the set values and rules practiced and made by the savior. He did the ultimate deed in saving his people of Denmark, by giving up his own life. He found it important that the kingdom was not left with an immoral ruler, and this is a big reason why he is the savior and protector for his people. For the good of others, he sacrificed his own life and power that he could have had within the kingdom. To also give up his life and not take it himself, even when suffering through so much pain, for the good of others, that shows the values and ethics of a hero. In Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, the main character Hamlet is represented as a savior where he continues to protect his values while staying strong and providing a secure kingdom.
This visitation is to whet thy almost blunted purpose," (83-84) says the ghost in a motivational manner which almost suggests a lack of faith on Hamlet's behalf. Nevertheless, Hamlet is overflowing with faith. Faith in god, faith in himself, even faith in his dead father's ghost a faith that will cost him his life. The untimely "Death" of King Hamlet, Hamlet's father, has sparked a disturbance in the regularity of Denmark.
In Hamlet, William Shakespeare presents the main character Hamlet as a man who is fixated on death. Shakespeare uses this obsession to explore both Hamlet's desire for revenge and his need for assurance. In the process, Shakespeare directs Hamlet to reflect on basic principles such as justice and truth by offering many examples of Hamlet's compulsive behavior; as thoughts of death are never far from his mind. It is apparent that Hamlet is haunted by his father's death. When Hamlet encounters the ghost of his father, their conversation raises all kinds of unthinkable questions, for example murder by a brother, unfaithful mother, that triggers Hamlet's obsession. He feels compelled to determine the reliability of the ghost's statements so that he can determine how he must act. Ultimately, it is his obsession with death that leads to Hamlet avenging the death of his father by killing Claudius.
Low, Anthony. "Hamlet and the Ghost of Purgatory: Intimations of Killing the Father."English Literary Renaissance 29.2 (1999): 443-67. Wiley Online Library. Web. 30 Mar. 2014.
William Shakespeare’s Hamlet revolves around Hamlet’s quest to avenge his father’s murder. Claudius’ first speech as King at the beginning of Scene 2, Act 1 introduces the themes of hierarchy, incest and appearance versus reality and plays the crucial role of revealing Claudius’ character as part of the exposition. The audience is left skeptical after Horatio’s questioning of King Hamlet’s ghost in the first scene of the play. By placing Claudius’ pompous speech immediately after the frightening appearance of Hamlet’s ghost, Shakespeare contrasts the mournful atmosphere in Denmark to the fanfare at the palace and makes a statement about Claudius’ hypocrisy. Through diction, doubling and figurative language, Shakespeare reveals Claudius to be a self centered, hypocritical, manipulative and commanding politician.
Hamlet as Victim of a Corrupt World Troubled by royal treason, ruthless scheming, and a ghost, Denmark is on the verge of destruction. Directly following King Hamlet's death, the widowed Queen Gertrude remarried Claudius, the King's brother. Prince Hamlet sees the union of his mother and uncle as a "hasty and incestuous" act (Charles Boyce, 232). He then finds out that Claudius is responsible for his father's treacherous murder. His father's ghost asks Hamlet to avenge his death, and Hamlet agrees.
Hamlet, a young prince preparing to become King of Denmark, cannot understand or cope with the catastrophes in his life. After his father dies, Hamlet is filled with confusion. However, when his father's ghost appears, the ghost explains that his brother, Hamlet's Uncle Claudius, murdered him. In awe of the supposed truth, Hamlet decides he must seek revenge and kill his uncle. This becomes his goal and sole purpose in life. However, it is more awkward for Hamlet because his uncle has now become his stepfather. He is in shock by his mother's hurried remarriage and is very confused and hurt by these circumstances. Along with these familial dysfunctions, Hamlet's love life is diminishing. It is an "emotional overload" for Hamlet (Fallon 40). The encounter with the ghost also understandably causes Hamlet great distress. From then on, his behavior is extremely out of context (Fallon 39). In Hamlet's first scene of the play, he does not like his mother's remarriage and even mentions his loss of interest in l...
Death threads its way through the entirety of Hamlet, from the opening scene’s confrontation with a dead man’s ghost to the blood bath of the final scene, which occurs as a result of the disruption of the natural order of Denmark. Hamlet is a man with suicidal tendencies which goes against his Christian beliefs as he is focused on the past rather than the future, which causes him to fall into the trap of inaction on his path of revenge. Hamlet’s moral dilemma stems from the ghost’s appearance as “a spirit of health or a goblin damned”, making Hamlet decide whether it brings with...
William Shakespeare is seen to many as one of the great writers in history. More specifically, the characters in his plays are reviewed and criticized and have been so for nearly four centuries. The character that many have revered Shakespeare for is perhaps the greatest such character ever in literature, Hamlet from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. The commentary and response to this legend of literature is of wide array and opinion, though most, such as Pennington, believe him to be a truly magnificent character: "Hamlet is perhaps the cleverest hero ever written, the subject of the first European tragedy, a form of genius. A type Shakespeare despaired of writing thereafter, having perceived that the heroes of tragedies must be sublime idiots" (185). However, despite his clear gifts and aura, Hamlet was a doomed character from the beginning: Hamlet is dominated by an emotion that is inexpressible. It is thus a feeling he cannot understand, he cannot objectify it, and it therefore remains open to poison life and to obstruct action" (Eliot 25). Thus, Hamlet, while possessing the traits of no other men of his time, a true Renaissance man, was doomed from the beginning of the play partly by forces he could not control, and also partly by his own character. It leads to a slow but definite ending to one of literature's great characters, one that he could not control. In the end, Hamlet was out of place in his environment, he was simply not meant to be.
King Hamlet loved his son like any father does. Hamlet looked up to his father like all children do and his life was greatly changed when he learned of his fathers death. After hearing the news of his father’s death, Hamlet felt as if a part of his life was ripped away from him, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. During an encounter with his father’s ghost, King Hamlet, Hamlet learns that his father was murdered. It was not the news that his father was murdered that shocked Hamlet into reality, it was the fact that the one who murdered him, was in fact his own loving brother, Claudius. After killing his own brother, Claudius believes that he can go on with life like nothing has happened. Hamlet does not understand how someone can murder somebody, who is not only the King, but their own brother, and go on with life like he did nothing wrong.
At first, Hamlet sees the ghost of his dead father and vows to avenge his death. “Christianity forbids followers to seek out spirits for advice or communication” (Ja) Hamlet has his faith tested because he is unsure about what his father is telling him. If the truth is that Claudius is the one who murdered Hamlet’s father then Hamlet will need to commit murder himself in order to fulfill his promise to his father’s ghost. “Hamlet, after the shock of his discoveries, becomes virtually another person and re-evaluates the situation in accordance with his religious views. Perhaps the ghost is just an illusion or mental disorder making him imagine this tale, and the murder of his father is illusory because he is not able to accept this kind of marriage and he wants to justify his crimes.” (****) Hamlet wrestles with his feelings and decides he must arrange for Claudius to admit to the murder instead of murdering Claudius himself. He is aware of the moral dilemma he finds himself in, if he kills Claudius then he, Hamlet may go to hell. If he refuses to kill Claudius then his father may be sent to hell. Hamlet knows from his religious background that murd...
Fiero, Gloria K. The Humanistic Tradition. 6th ed. Vol. 2. New York: McGraw Hill, 2011. Print.
The story of Hamlet Senior's death is the ghost story aspect of the play. Hamlet Senior, the late king, was being tormented in hell throughout the daylight hours and during the night he was forced to walk the castle. He stated that he was "Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night, And for the day confin'd to fast in fires, Till the foul crimes done in my [being the late King's] days of nature Are burnt and purg'd away (50 lines 10-13). His release from this torture would not be permitted until his avenger is retaliated against by his son. Hamlet, Francisco and Bernardo all see the ghost of the late king, but the apparition will only speak to his son. The ghost brings an unnatural feel to the drama and leaves the reader/viewer wondering if it was real or all in Hamlet's mind.
Old Hamlet is killed by his brother Claudius. Only two months after her husband’s death a vulnerable Gertrude marries her husband’s brother Claudius. Gertrude’s weakness opens the door for Claudius to take the throne as the king of Denmark. Hamlet is outraged by this, he loses respect for his mother as he feels that she has rejected him and has taken no time to mourn her own husband’s death. One night old Hamlets ghost appears to prince Hamlet and tells him how he was poisoned by his own brother. Up until this point the kingdom of Denmark believed that old Hamlet had died of natural causes. As it was custom, prince Hamlet sought to avenge his father’s death. This leads Hamlet, the main character into a state of internal conflict as he agonises over what action and when to take it as to avenge his father’s death. Shakespeare’s play presents the reader with various forms of conflict which plague his characters. He explores these conflicts through the use of soliloquies, recurring motifs, structure and mirror plotting.