More handpicked essays just for you.
Revenge in shakespeare essay
Compare and contrast hamlet, laertes and fortinbras
Compare and contrast hamlet, laertes and fortinbras
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
An Eye for an eye, measure for measure, ill will; these are all ways of saying revenge, and it is clear that Shakespeare knows a thing or two about the concept of revenge. This theme is clearly illustrated all throughout Shakespeare’s renowned play, Hamlet. The plotting of revenge can be seen most clearly through the eyes of Hamlet, Laertes, and Fortinbras. All three of these men are seeking to avenge their fathers, but not all of them go about it in the same way. Shakespeare shows us how these men have different ideas on how revenge should be taken and when it should be taken.
The lesser known of these three is of course Fortinbras. He is a Norwegian prince on a mission to avenge his father, and bring death to those who oppose him. He is in fact a very similar character to Hamlet in several ways. Both of their fathers have died, and they both share their father’s names, but even thought they both seek revenge the way they go about it shares no similarities. Fortinbras can in fact be called a foil to Hamlet, for he has an extremely different approach on revenge. It is plain to see that Fortinbras is a terse, decisive, man of action. Hamlet realizes that he is nowhere near as brave and determined as Fortinbras when he remarks,
“Witness this army of such mass and charge,
Led by a delicate and tender prince,
Whose spirit with divine ambition puff’d,
Makes mouths at the invisible event,
Exposing what is mortal and unsure
To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,
Even for an egg-shell” (4.4, 47-53).
Hamlet sees that Fortinbras is willing to risk his own life just to avenge his father and his name. After becoming crowned prince after his father’s death, Fortinbras rallies his forces in Norway and marches off to war and rev...
... middle of paper ...
...his father, ruined his mother, and even tried to kill Hamlet himself, he is still not confident enough to take action. However just like Laertes, Hamlet does get his revenge in the end, but was it worth all the unwanted death?
So Fortinbras, Laertes, and Hamlet all get their revenge in one way or the other, but was it worth it? Hamlet’s mission was to kill Claudius, but still remain holy and pure, but he helped cause 6 other unwanted deaths. Laertes was able to kill Hamlet for the death of his father and sister, but in the end we see that he regrets doing so. Even Fortinbras’ revenge is an empty one, because in the end, no one wins when we get revenge. In truth revenge is just an endless cycle that continues to turn with every new death and avenging. Unfortunately for Shakespeare’s characters they do not realize this until they are all dead bleeding upon the floor.
In Shakespeare's play, Hamlet, the young Prince Hamlet must deal with murder, corruption and incest. The foils to Prince Hamlet, give the reader a basis to summarize his character within the play. Such foils include Laertes, son of Polonius, Claudius, current king of Denmark and stepfather of Hamlet, and Fortinbras, the prince of Norway.
Fortinbras marches his army to Poland, in order to fight for a worthless piece of land. By doing this, Fortinbras believes he is reclaiming his father’s name and restoring his family’s honor. Hamlet, on the other side, does the complete opposite. He does not take immediate action for any cause and he is portrayed as a great procrastinator in the play itself. Hamlet does think of plans and actions, but he does not put them into the works. Hamlet does get side tracked by his own thoughts, which eventually force him to talk himself out to taking action for revenge.
In the play, Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, the character of Fortinbras, has been used as a foil for the main character, Hamlet. Hamlet and Fortinbras have lost their fathers to untimely deaths. Claudius killed Hamlet's father, King Hamlet, and King Hamlet killed Fortinbras' father. Both Hamlet and Fortinbras have vowed to seek revenge for the deaths of their fathers. Since the revenge tactics of Hamlet and Fortinbras are completely different, Hamlet perceives the actions of Fortinbras as better than his own and the actions of Fortinbras, then, encourage Hamlet to act without hesitating.
Moreover, Fortinbras is about to conquer a small piece of land without hesitation in order to honor his father. Consequently, his purpose is to characterize the bloody deeds that Hamlet cannot descend to. Hamlet praises Fortinbras, “Exposing what is mortal and unsure / To all that fortune, death, and danger dare, / Even for an eggshell” (4.4.53-5). Therefore, Shakespeare allows the audience to see how Hamlet admires a man who can act on an action that is much smaller than Hamlet’s cause of action. That is, hamlet is conflicted, and he proclaims, “My thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth!”
In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, the theme of revenge is very palpable as the reader examines the characters of Hamlet himself, as well as Laertes, son of Polonius, and Fortinbras, prince of Norway and son of the late King Fortinbras. Each of these young characters felt the need to avenge the deaths of their fathers who they felt were untimely killed at the bloody hands of their murderers. However, the way each chose to go about this varies greatly and gives insight into their characters and how they progress throughout the play. Hamlet, Laertes and Fortinbras are similar in the fact that each had love, or at least respect, their fathers. Enough to make an attempt to wreak revenge upon their fathers murderers at the risk of their own reputation, freedom, and souls.
... and eventually get what he wants. Fortinbras and Hamlet revenge plans are as different as night and day. While Fortinbras is going on the offense and is leading a group of men to attack Denmark, Hamlet is going on the defence and pretending to be insane.
...er to regain land lost by his deceased father. All three of these men were affected by their father’s deaths and wanted to find a solution. Many people would say that these three men had daddy issues. Both Hamlet and Fortinbras were dealing with the issue of why are their uncles are Kings when they were the rightful heir. Hamlet compared himself to Fortinbras when he passed Fortinbras's armies in the fields and he saw Fortinbras as a model for how he should behave and Hamlet said, “To be great / is not to stir without great argument / but greatly to find quarrel in a straw / when honor's at the stake” (4.4.52-55).
The theme of vengeance is apparent within the tragedy before the tragedy even begins. King Fortinbras is defeated by King Hamlet, leaving Prince Fortinbras orphaned. This naturally brings about bitterness between Prince Fortinbras and King Hamlet. Prince Fortinbras is angry, within reason. His father was just killed, his lands stolen, and now he is the person to whom all of the duty is left. These feelings lead Fortinbras to a state of angered reactions. He prepares an army to march into Poland and Denmark to recover the lands that his father had lost. He takes action, leaving the rest of his life behind, and marching over to get retaliation against the man who killed his father. He sets his mind on what he has to do, and sets off, away from his home, in a strong, purposeful manner. When Fortinbras prepares to march through Denmark, his address to King Claudius is direct, purposeful, and unemotional.
Revenge is a major theme throughout William Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet. This theme provides motivation for characters to murder each other throughout the play, whether or not characters seek revenge for themselves. Because Laertes and Hamlet are so absorbed with wanting to exact revenge upon certain people, they ultimately cause the deaths of all of the main characters in the play. Revenge is the main root of evil in this play. Laertes is greatly influenced by revenge for his actions, especially when he is seeking revenge for his sister.
By proper revenge we refer to the Elizabethan view that revenge must be sought in certain cases, for the world to continue properly. This is the main plot of Hamlet. In Poetics, Aristotle defines for us, the element of plot and shows us how he believes it must be put together. He also believes in various unities which he states are necessary for a proper tragedy. Aristotle believes in what he calls "Unity of plot" (Aristotle 42 - 3). This "Unity" leaves no room for subplots, which are crucial to the theme of Hamlet. Without the subplot of Laertes' revenge and the subplot of Fortinbras' revenge, we are left with a lugubrious play where the ending, although necessary, is pointless. The three sub-plots together as a unit, allow us to understand what Shakespeare thought of revenge.
Although each character plots to avenge his father in the play, the motives of Laertes and Fortinbras differ greatly than that of Hamlet. Fortinbras, who schemes to rebuild his father's kingdom, leads thousands of men into battle, attempting to capture a small and worthless piece of Poland. After his uncle warned him against attacking Denmark. The added land will do little to benefit Norway's prosperity, but this campaign may cost "two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats" (4.4.26) . This shows that pride is a driving factor behind Fortinbras' plan because he is willing to put the lives of his countrymen at risk for a minimal gain. Laertes, on the other hand, is compelled to seek revenge because he loses his father and eventually his sister. The root of Laertes' revenge appears to be the love for his family because he proclaims that he will "be revenged / most throughly for [his] father" (4.5...
Throughout Shakespeare’s play, revenge intertwines to bring about the deaths of most of the main characters. Hamlet’s course of revenge initiates the first fatality when Polonius gets caught spying on him and Gertrude (III. iv. 24-25). By pursuing revenge, Hamlet killing Polonius paves the way for more lives to be lost. Claudius sees the murder as an opportunity to eliminate Hamlet, because Laertes’s obsession with revenge leaves him vulnerable. Laertes’s and Hamlet’s revenge lead to the deaths of Gertrude, Laertes, Claudius, and finally Hamlet (V. ii. 287-357). The revenge of each character ironically ended their own life. By acting upon revenge and having inimical intentions, the individuals brought fatalities that were unnecessary.
Revenge has caused the downfall of many a person. Its consuming nature causes one to act recklessly through anger rather than reason. Revenge is an emotion easily rationalized; one turn deserves another. However, this is a very dangerous theory to live by. Throughout Hamlet, revenge is a dominant theme. Fortinbras, Laertes, and Hamlet all seek to avenge the deaths of their fathers. But in so doing, all three rely more on emotion than thought, and take a very big gamble, a gamble which eventually leads to the downfall and death of all but one of them. King Fortinbras was slain by King Hamlet in a sword battle. This entitled King Hamlet to the land that was possessed by Fortinbras because it was written in a seal'd compact. "…our valiant Hamlet-for so this side of our known world esteem'd him-did slay this Fortinbras." Young Fortinbras was enraged by his father’s murder and sought revenge against Denmark. He wanted to reclaim the land that had been lost to Denmark when his father was killed. "…Now sir, young Fortinbras…as it doth well appear unto our state-but to recover of us, by strong hand and terms compulsative, those foresaid lands so by his father lost…" Claudius becomes aware of Fortinbras’ plans, and in an evasive move, sends a message to the new King of Norway, Fortinbras’ uncle.
Revenge is a motif we see repeatedly throughout the play. Different characters use revenge differently according to their situation. Revenge leads Hamlet and Laertes to their deaths while it makes Fortinbras gain back the land of Denmark. As you can see, the quote by Phaedrus encompasses the entire concept of revenge in Hamlet. The swordfight at the end of the play allowed the characters to complete their revenge, and probably without this, the different reprisals probably wouldn’t have been carried out. All in all, throughout the play, Hamlet, Laertes, and Fortinbras all had a tragic death of a family member which caused their decision for revenge.
Hamlet contains three plots of revenge throughout the five acts of the play. Young Hamlet, after getting a shocking realization from his father’s ghost, wants to enact a plot of revenge against his uncle. Laertes, who was struck twice in quick succession by the death of his father and sister, wants to kill Hamlet. Away in Norway, Fortinbras wants to take revenge on the entire nation of Denmark for taking his father’s land and life. These three sons all want the same thing, vengeance, but they go about it in wildly different ways, but as Lillian wilds points out, “he also sees himself in the mirrors of Fortinbras [and] Laertes.”(153) It becomes clear that the parallels presented throughout the play are there to further illuminate the flaws of