Existentialism In Hamlet

When looking at Hamlet, one could say that William Shakespeare put the play together as a very cathartic tragedy. The emotional result of dealing with so many deaths brings on a plethora of emotions which are not usually felt in a typical play. Hamlet begins not with the normal prosperity and good fortune as do most tragedies, but with a more stifling and depressing sort of mood (Tekany 115). However, something else could be said about this play as well. The play centers on Hamlet and his existential characteristics, such as angst, isolation and his confrontations with nothingness. The exhibition of these characteristics proves Hamlet to be an existential character.

Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a tragic play about murder, betrayal, revenge, madness, and moral corruption. It touches upon philosophical ideas such as existentialism and relativism. Prince Hamlet frequently questions the meaning of life and the degrading of morals as he agonizes over his father’s murder, his mother’s incestuous infidelity, and what he should or shouldn’t do about it. At first, he is just depressed; still mourning the loss of his father as his mother marries his uncle. After he learns about the treachery of his uncle and the adultery of his mother, his already negative countenance declines further. He struggles with the task of killing Claudius, feeling burdened about having been asked to find a solution to a situation that was

Shakespeare's drama Hamlet has become a central piece of literature of Western culture. It is the story of a prince named Hamlet, who lost his father. Soon after that he has to confront multiple obstacles and devises a series of situations to defend the new king's royalty. Furthermore, he had to prove that King Claudius, who was the prince's uncle, had killed Hamlet's father. This story has remained among the most popular and the most controversial plays around the world. It generates controversy for all the doubts that this play leaves with the readers. One of the most questioning situations in the play is the delay of Hamlet in avenging Claudius' for his father's death. As a reader this

Hamlet is a suspenseful play that introduces the topic of tragedy. Throughout the play, Hamlet displays anger, uncertainty, and obsession with death. Although Hamlet is unaware of it, these emotions cause the mishaps that occur throughout the play. These emotions combined with his unawareness are the leading basis for the tragic hero’s flaws. These flaws lead Hamlet not to be a bad man, but a regular form of imperfection that comes along with being human.

Hamlet is as much a story of emotional conflict, paranoia, and self-doubt as it is one of revenge and tragedy. The protagonist, Prince Hamlet of Denmark, is instructed by his slain father’s ghost to enact vengeance upon his uncle Claudius, whose treacherous murder of Hamlet’s father gave way to his rise to power. Overcome by anguish and obligation to avenge his father’s death, Hamlet ultimately commits a number of killings throughout the story. However, we are not to view the character Hamlet as a sick individual, but rather one who has been victimized by his own circumstances.

The relevance and significance of the revenge tragedy is in the way it explores human nature and forces audiences to evaluate ideologies such as revenge and justice. The concept of revenge is accompanied by moral conflict and Shakespeare demonstrates that by acting immorally society is likely to be riddled with corruption. Hamlet seeks to avenge the death of his father but struggles with the ramifications of seeking righteous revenge through an immoral act. The imposition of revenge instills the existential questioning on Hamlet as it contradicts his with his social expectation. His

During the early 1600s, a time of unrest and uncertainty spread through most of the world specifically in Europe as it began to see a gradual insurgency of leadership as new monarchs rose to great power as the existent ones faded. The legitimacy to how some new rulers gained their prestigious power came into question as tales of treason especially within families spread rapidly. William Shakespeare, having grown up near this time period was influenced by his surroundings and similar works such as histoires Tragiques, that inspired his work Hamlet. Although there are various views and opinions surrounding Hamlet as a whole, it is a great tragedy which centers itself on one’s own uncertainty and depicts seeking revenge as a major theme. These main topics are further discussed in the works or Kiernan Ryan and the British Library in “Hamlet and Revenge”, as well as “Hamlet in Purgatory” by Stephen Greenblatt. The main character, Hamlet however is both the protagonist and the tragic hero as the story unfolds. Hamlet is torn between his own conscience as expresses in his ongoing soliloquies and in doing what he believes is right opposed to seeking revenge, which leads him to being indecisive on his actions taken due to influence caused by those around him.

   Do we matter? Will anything we do endure? These are questions from existentialism. The dictionary defines existentialism as "the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for his acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad" (Merriam Webster). In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Hamlet struggles with the concept that nothing from our lives last and time grinds everything away. Hamlet's major conflict was his existentialist view of the world.

Literary critics have been debating Hamlet’s madness for over four hundred years. In what is considered to be one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays, the main character seems to be having an existential crisis that borders on pure madness due to the murder of his father and the hasty marriage of his mother to his uncle. In actuality, it is the world around him driving him to what seems like pure delusion. I believe that Hamlet’s actions are a direct result from his mixed feelings towards Ophelia and his mother and also his inability to decipher his emotions.

Through the play Hamlet Prince of Denmark by Shakespeare, Shakespeare uses hamlet as a symbolic representation of existentialism and presents him with a series of challenges and questionsto be answered. The dictionary defines existentialism as a "philosophical movement . . . centering on analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for acts of free will some questions he is faced with is what is the purpose of life ? What is mankind ?

For centuries human beings have been pondering the existence of themselves and others through the philosophy of existentialism. Existentialism is defined by the power of free will, as well as personal responsibility and discipline is crucial. There are many different areas of existentialism such as: existence precedes essence, anxiety, absurdity, nothingness, death and alienation/ estrangement (Kalamazoo Valley Community College). Each of these areas have different meaning of existentialism. Anxiety is the sense of anguish or fear which is not directed to any specific job. Anxiety in existentialism rejects ideas of happiness, enlightenment, and a sense of well-being. This philosophy is what gives people the ability to choose and make their own decisions and allows people to escape from bad situations. Such as those that Nora, the Lady of Shallot, Hamlet, and the Victim had to experience. Although not all of these situations were the same, they were quite similar. As a matter of fact, one way that each of these scenarios were different was that Hamlet was not really escaping from a bad situation, he was putting an end to the cause of the heinous crimes.

This essay will discuss several literary criticisms of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. After skimming through several articles, I ended up with four peer-reviewed journal articles, each a different critical perspectives of the play: feminist, psychoanalytical/freudian, moral, and new historicism. My previous studies of Hamlet, as well as my rereading of the play this semester, has collectively given me a general knowledge of the text. My familiarity of the play made it easier for me to decipher the academic journals and see the connections each critic made with the play.

Shakespeare is an existentialist prolific precursor; he is a writer who focuses on existentialist ideas in his own distinctive theatrical and poetic terms long before they were fully developed in the philosophical and literary terms of the 20th century. Existentialism is a man-centered philosophy. Defined briefly as regarding the precedence of human existence to essence, thus humans are entirely free and must be held culpable for their actions, as they create their own values and determine their own meaning to their life. It typically displays a dismal of abstract theories that seek to disguise the untidiness of actual human lives. It emphasizes the subjective realities of individual existence, individual freedom, and individual choice,

Hamlet is one of Shakespeare’s most well-known tragedies. At first glance, it holds all of the common occurrences in a revenge tragedy which include plotting, ghosts, and madness, but its complexity as a story far transcends its functionality as a revenge tragedy. Revenge tragedies are often closely tied to the real or feigned madness in the play. Hamlet is such a complex revenge tragedy because there truly is a question about the sanity of the main character Prince Hamlet. Interestingly enough, this deepens the psychology of his character and affects the way that the revenge tragedy takes place. An evaluation of Hamlet’s actions and words over the course of the play can be determined to see that his ‘outsider’ outlook on society,

Hamlet is one the best known works of Willian Shakespeare, a play that emphasizes revenge, as one of the major topics . The main character hamlet is driven by all of this revenge matter , and ends up physically killing 2 people, Claudius and Polonius, as well as indirectly causing the deaths of 5 other characters throughout the play. It is a Play that leaves us with uncertainty and doubts , we can go either way, we could see hamlet as a protagonist who seeks justice for his father’s murder or an antagonist, because let 's be realistic it is a bit extreme all the deaths he cause just to avenge one person. I chose to look at hamlet through the psychoanalytic criticism scope. I will attempt to demonstrate how his id, ego, and super ego influenced In his behavior and decision on murdering his uncle, and the problems he confronted while attempting to accomplish his fathers will to do so. Hopefully, we can make a decision after being presented hamlet through this new perspective.