Vengeance and Greed leads to Madness in Hamlet

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Throughout the history of Literature, writing has become more complex. One will see the idea of revenge in many great pieces. If one were to take a glance at modern society you will see that vengeance and greed is destroying large communities over time, populations, and even entire civilizations. Revenge and greed has the power to turn a complete civil man into a total savage and Shakespeare showed the reader in one of his most popular fine works called Hamlet. Hamlet is dealing with a character who goes through a change from college student to a bloodthirsty character looking for vengeance. Even though the character loses sight of who he is and who he really avenging in the end he feels that he is complete. There is also another character who is being overwhelmed with greed that he would kill his own blood for the right of the crown and fortune. The reader’s will see that revenge and greed plays a main role and that they complement each other and Shakespeare would use this to his advantage when writing this play. Throughout the play readers will realize Shakespeare’s creativness to use vengeance, death and insanity to emotionally drive his characters to their death or to their prosperity.

The theme takes an early shape in this play almost as soon as the play starts with Hamlet’s father would enter the scene as a ghost telling Hamlet how he was murdered by his brother Claudius. The ghost will ask Hamlet if he would murder Claudius to justify his death and Hamlet would answer without reasoning or thought he would accept this challenge. As the theme is unfolding Shakespeare introduce to us characters better known as foils. A foil is a character who is usually a complete contrast to the main character to highlight their features ...

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...es landing a blow on Laertes killing him, he then feels the poison act upon his body and quickly work his way to the King swiftly raising the dagger and executes him. Hamlet finally avenges his father leaving Horatio a man who has been able to avoid all of the deceit and drama to tell the tale of Hamlet.

With such great foils such as Laertes some may question whether if the play would be anything without him. Others may comment on how revenge and greed takes hold of the whole play and leads only to the death of all who is involved making this play a perfect example on how destructive greed and vengeance can be. This play shows that vengeance and greed can take hold of anyone, even people who go off and pursue their dreams only having the world come crashing down on them as they resort to follow a path of vengeance and greed that leads them to nothing but madness.

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