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Comparing hamlet to other works of literature
Comparing hamlet to other works of literature
Hamlet comparison
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Recommended: Comparing hamlet to other works of literature
Stephanie Coleman
Prof. Wagner
English 1202
27 February 2015 Need Title
Shakespeare’s Hamlet is the center of controversy in more ways than one. Hamlet, the play’s main character is the textbook quintessential person to be defined as a tragic hero. His noble intentions of taking revenge for his father form in the beginning of the play; however as the play comes to a close the only conceivable ending to polish off the final act is his own death. While his death is in the final act, Hamlet does not live far enough into the play to see his work come together in its entirety. Just as the classic tragic hero, Hamlet possesses a tragic flaw. While there are many flaws in Hamlets character, it is his understanding of the power of words and language
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The end result for each and every character have in one way or another has somehow been affected by words. In many ways, every character’s sense of reality has been created and further shaped because of their relationship Hamlet and his language and words towards them. Many times in the play, it is very evident what his tragic flaw is. Another instance of Hamlet’s verbose behavior effecting the play are in his actions towards Ophelia. His actions around and to her are certainly not what drove her to commit suicide, but his language and the words he speaks do. While he too treats Ophilia as a child and belittles her, he goes a step farther and tells her she is turning into a “breeder of sinners” in place of ignoring her or shunning her (3.1.122-123). By him using a less of physical approach, he used his words to harm her even more deeply. Contrasting to the numerous of different characters, Hamlet comprehends and fully appreciates his own skills with complex language and word. He uses his gift, above all, to achieve his goals. His and Ophelia’s interactions are only a single example of his powerful usage of …show more content…
In a general sense, Hamlet is a contemplative character and in any regular sense that may not have resulted in a problem. Hamlet over the course of the play hesitates and questions the correctness of his plans for revenge, and also seems to question if his motivations are genuine. Nonetheless, being a member of the royal family tends to place him in more negative and stressful situations than a normal character of person would have. This causes his brings his commitment with words to such a high standard that he is nearly crippled with
In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the title character is one of histories greatest examples of a tragic hero. Hamlet is born a prince and is seen throughout the play as a hero, but soon the reader begins to see a flaw emerge. Throughout the play, Hamlet exhibits indecision and procrastination. These two traits are his tragic flaws that lead to his death. Hamlet at many times during the play has a chance to avenge his fathers’ death and kill Claudius. At one point Hamlet gives a whole soliloquy debating on whether or not to kill his Uncle, “And ...
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.
Shakespeare’s Hamlet is arguably one of the best plays known to English literature. It presents the protagonist, Hamlet, and his increasingly complex path through self discovery. His character is of an abnormally complex nature, the likes of which not often found in plays, and many different theses have been put forward about Hamlet's dynamic disposition. One such thesis is that Hamlet is a young man with an identity crisis living in a world of conflicting values.
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.
What intrigues me most about Hamlet is the complexity of Hamlet’s character. In Hamlet, although the external world is in disarray, it is the disturbance of Hamlet’s personal world that drives the play’s dramatic action and tension. The exasperation Hamlet embodies is caused by many internal conflicts of delay, morality, sanity, and irrationality that arise from events that mislead his decision making. Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1599-1601) is play where Hamlet struggles to take action and confronts conflicting ideologies opposed upon him, which still resonates with a modern audience today.
In conclusion, the inner strife that is prevalent in Hamlet causes the repercussions of his father’s death to be multiplied, and end in the eventual deaths of his loved ones, and a final epiphany in the last moments of his life. The self-doubt, the question of whether it is better “to be or not to be,” changes the lives of all who come in contact with Hamlet, and enhances the overall aspect of the play itself. Without this conflict, the play would simply be a story of revenge, and not a dramatic tragedy which masterfully observes both the positive and negative aspects of the human mind and its ability to conduct itself in stressful situations
As the play’s tragic hero, Hamlet exhibits a combination of good and bad traits. A complex character, he displays a variety of characteristics throughout the play’s development. When he is first introduced in Act I- Scene 2, one sees Hamlet as a sensitive young prince who is mourning the death of his father, the King. In addition, his mother’s immediate marriage to his uncle has left him in even greater despair. Mixed in with this immense sense of grief, are obvious feelings of anger and frustration. The combination of these emotions leaves one feeling sympathetic to Hamlet; he becomes a very “human” character. One sees from the very beginning that he is a very complex and conflicted man, and that his tragedy has already begun.
Hamlet was able to avenge his father's passing, but his own demise due to his indecisiveness brands him as a tragic hero. The Tragedy of Hamlet masterfully displays how the failure to act, however honorable the purposes, can be harmful to
Hamlet's fatal flaw is his inability to act. Unlike his father, Hamlet lets his intelligence rather than his heroism govern him. When he has a chance to kill Claudius, and take vengeance for his father's murder, he hesitates, reckoning that if he kills the man while he is at prayer, Claudius would have asked for pardon from the Lord and been forgiven of his sins, therefore allowing him to enter Heaven. Hamlet decides to wait for a better opening. His flaw of being hesitant in the end leads to his own death, and also the deaths of Gertrude, Ophelia, Laertes, and Claudius.
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.
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.
Hamlet is one of the most often-performed and studied plays in the English language. The story might have been merely a melodramatic play about murder and revenge, butWilliam Shakespeare imbued his drama with a sensitivity and reflectivity that still fascinates audiences four hundred years after it was first performed. Hamlet is no ordinary young man, raging at the death of his father and the hasty marriage of his mother and his uncle. Hamlet is cursed with an introspective nature; he cannot decide whether to turn his anger outward or in on himself. The audience sees a young man who would be happiest back at his university, contemplating remote philosophical matters of life and death. Instead, Hamlet is forced to engage death on a visceral level, as an unwelcome and unfathomable figure in his life. He cannot ignore thoughts of death, nor can he grieve and get on with his life, as most people do. He is a melancholy man, and he can see only darkness in his future—if, indeed, he is to have a future at all. Throughout the play, and particularly in his two most famous soliloquies, Hamlet struggles with the competing compulsions to avenge his father’s death or to embrace his own. Hamlet is a man caught in a moral dilemma, and his inability to reach a resolution condemns himself and nearly everyone close to him.
The tragedy of Hamlet, Shakespeare’s most popular and greatest tragedy, presents his genius as a playwright and includes many numbers of themes and literary techniques. In all tragedies, the main character, called a tragic hero, suffers and usually dies at the end. Prince Hamlet is a model example of a Shakespearean tragic hero. Every tragedy must have a tragic hero. A tragic hero must own many good traits, but has a flaw that ultimately leads to his downfall. If not for this tragic flaw, the hero would be able to survive at the end of the play. A tragic hero must have free will and also have the characteristics of being brave and noble. In addition, the audience must feel some sympathy for the tragic hero.
Like all Shakespearean tragedies, Hamlet’s ending is no different in end-result. Hamlet’s separation from society and his self-imposed confusion caused by over-thinking results in the unnecessary deaths of most of the major characters. In turn, Hamlet’s pre-occupation with factors inessential to his mission of revenge slows down his action. It is this internal struggle that illustrates the intensity and complexity of Shakespeare’s revenge tragedy, something that is often looked at from a psychological perspective.
The perfection of Hamlet’s character has been called in question - perhaps by those who do not understand it. The character of Hamlet stands by itself. It is not a character marked by strength of will or even of passion, but by refinement of thought and sentiment. Hamlet is as little of the hero as a man can be. He is a young and princely novice, full of high enthusiasm and quick sensibility - the sport of circumstances, questioning with fortune and refining on his own feelings, and forced from his natural disposition by the strangeness of his situation.