Like any other human Hamlet has experienced the loss of his father. Although the loss of a loved one is a very common feeling that every person will experience, Hamlet had lost his father and his mother even though she was still alive. She betrayed his by marrying Hamlet’s father within the same week as his father, her husband, passing. Also Hamlet had to watch his uncle become the new King. Hamlet despite all the negative surrounding him experienced some of the same feelings that anyone going through a normal loss of a parent or loved one would experience, Hamlet experienced pain, sadness and numbness, frustration from being broken hearted, anger and confusion and depression, to name just a few. Over the course of Hamlet’s seven soliloquies, the audience can see the slow transgression of Hamlet’s growth; however, Hamlet was pretty much stayed in the same mind frame. To start the play, King Claudius gave a speech that despite the loss of his brother he had taken his spot as King, Married his wife and this was cause for a celebration. This was still very much a shock to Hamlet, he was filled with so much sadness and numbness. Through pain filled tears Hamlet spoke “O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew, or that the Everlasting had not fixed his canon ‘gainst self-slaughter. O God, God, How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world!” (I.2.129-134). This has so much pain and depression, here Hamlet
His mother and his uncle have married after only 2 months of Hamlet’s father’s death. This has caused Hamlet to be in a heavy state of anger, mixed with his already deep state of mourning. According to Theodore Lidz, these two states can lead to one thinking back on all the negative wishes one may have had in the past. Considering Hamlet’s relatively young age, death wishes upon a parent are not serious but they are common among children. “…and as most, if not all, children have sometimes had death wishes toward a parent, guilt over such wishes can become intense when the parent dies.” (Lidz 48) All of these emotions mixed together so early in the play could lead to a sense of depression.
In real life Shakespeare has a tragic event occur, the death of his son, Hamnet. His way of mourning and dealing with death was to write the tragedy, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Shakespeare uses Hamlet as a mirror to express his overwhelming despair. As said by an article written by Peter Bray, “ It is suggested that in creating Hamlet, Shakespeare must have drawn upon some profound personal experiences.” (Bray) Through Hamlet’s pain Shakespeare mirrors his own feelings of being lost and depressed. Within the play there is a common theme, the mourning of death and how it varies from man to man. Young Hamlet locks himself away and contemplates suicide saying. “To be or not to be”(3.1.57). He ponders whether given his current life situation it is better to exist or to not have existed at all. Another message Shakespeare wishes to get across is that proper mourning takes a substantial amount of time, this is something Claudius and his mother do not understand. In a scene with Claudius and Hamlet they say, “ How is it that the clouds still hang on you? / Not so, my lord. I am too much i' the sun.”(1.2.66-67). Claudius wonders why Hamlet has not moved on yet, but based on the reader’s knowledge how would the king know what it is like to lose someone he’s lost? He does not understand the struggle of overcoming death and the amount of time it takes. This arguably could be an insight into the real life of
Throughout the play, Hamlet undergoes a painful split between head and heart, caused by numerous family problems. When the prince returns home to pay his final respects to his dear and beloved father, he discovers a most terrible fate. He learns that his noble father whom he had loved so, is not only deceased, but his own uncle is to blame. Hamlet's mother, whom he also loves dearly, is now sharing an "adulterous bed" with the very murderer of her once beloved husband. Initially, Hamlet is driven to a state of ruin by
Hamlet is very private with his grief. His mourning for his father is long and drawn out. He mulls over how he is going to act and defers action until a perfect moment.
In this soliloquy we also observe the use of sensory imagery to spearhead the theme along. Hamlet paints an image of a river that is weakened by changing the direction of the current. He declares, “With this regard their currents turn awry/ And lose the name of action,” (III.i.88-89). We have visual imagery of a river whose current has begun to flow differently. This river can no longer move with the power of a raging rapid, they are weakened due to this massive change in their life. Hamlet is similar to this river; his father has been killed and his uncle is now his step-father. This is a colossal change in his life that has drastically weakened him. He must make a giant change to his life yet again and he will never know how this will turn out for him. We see his attentiveness in the quote: “And by a sleep say we end / The heart-ache and thousand natural shocks / That flesh is heir to,” (III.i.62-64). Contemplating killing himself we notice that all he truly wants is for the heartache to end. With organic imagery Shakespeare makes this incredibly relatable to most audiences. The majority of people have had – or will have - a
Hamlet’s inability to act upon his emotions begins in the wake of his father’s death and his mother’s instantaneous/hasty marriage to Claudius. Criticized for his prolonged mourning of his late father and insistence from his mother to move on, Hamlet must momentarily seize publicly grieving for his father and in a lengthy expression of torment, contemplates suicide as he agonizes over the dreads of life and the reality that “[he] must hold [his] tongue,” in regards to his mourning (1.2.164). For the sake of his mother’s request, Hamlet anguishes over having to refrain from speaking of his grief, only to deliver a prolonged speech of his woes of mourning. While everyone in the kingdom of Denmark embraces the new king,
The play first introduces Hamlet in the second scene while he is grieving his father’s death. He expresses his grief through his discontent with his mother’s lack of mourning: “Two months dead—nay, not so much, not two… She married. O, most wicked speed” (Shakespeare, I, ii). He is still grieving his father’s death while his mother has moved on and married Hamlet’s uncle. Everyone has a different way to deal with the death of a parent, but what is
Hamlet was deeply depressed about his father's death, in this quote he couldn't even speak in complete sentences so you can see how much this affected Hamlet and how it took a toll on him. Hamlet overcome this obstacle by taking revenge for his father and killing his uncle for the murder of his father. Hamlet was also going through other obstacles because right after his father death his mother married his father's killer which is his uncle. Hamlet was bummed about this and really disappointed in his mother's actions. In the Play Hamlet said “she married.
Hamlet is undeniably an epic among all plays. Shakespeare’s command of storytelling and the meticulously sculpted layers of the play add to the sheer grandeur of the life of Hamlet and the multitude of forces acting against him. The complex dialogue, the magnificent story arches, and the archetypal themes are all essential to the understanding and enjoyment of Hamlet, but there is one particular subject matter that The Bard placed at the center of all the conflict and emotion of the play: grief. The Prince of Denmark’s burdened life after his father’s death is completely coerced by the tearing force of grief throughout his mental and emotional state of being. His purpose, his insanity, and ultimately his downfall stemmed from this encumbrance.
After the death of old King Hamlet, Hamlet was struggling to keep himself and his feelings contained. His mind has so many thoughts running from his father’s death, to his neglected relationships, and from his thoughts towards Claudius. As the story escalates, more events pile up on top of Hamlet’s troubles making him slowly go insane.
In the play, Hamlet, a disillusioned prince attempts to avenge his father’s death. The play presents several questions that ponder over morals, life, and love. One of the ultimate questions it asks is: Can one truly overcome and recover the loss of a loved one? Shakespeare offers some insight into this using the main character Hamlet. Hamlet’s endless sorrow and the ghost demonstrate that the loss of a loved one can never fully be overcome.
Like everyone else, Hamlet has his own personal way of grieving and “he resorts to puns because puns free him from the terrible logic of normalcy, which has nothing to do with grief and cannot fully admit its darkness” (O’Rourke). Not only does he have his own unique way of grieving, but he also is experiencing unique circumstances that accompany the death of his father. He constantly toys with the concept of madness and uses other characters’ hesitation to interact with him to manipulate them. Hamlet’s irrational tendencies are not part of the five steps of the grieving
Hamlet's father, Old King Hamlet who he looked up to was recently killed, and his mother married his uncle within a month. He receives a visit from the ghost of his father which urges him to "revenge [Claudius'] foul and most unnatural murder" (I, v, 32) of Old Hamlet. It is only logical that under these circumstances, Hamlet would be under great duress, and it would not be abnormal for him to express grief. Fortnibra and Laertes also have to deal with the avenging their fathers' death.
The way that Hamlet viewed his life wasn’t in the most optimistic manner after the tragic incident with his father. He showed numerous amounts of strong yet justified emotions. Throughout the play, his feeling of despair towards his life and the world is expressed. In Act II Scene i Hamlet speaks to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern “I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth … that this goodly frame, the Earth,
Hamlet is arguably one of the greatest dramatic characters to be created. As he learns of his father’s death, he starts to over analyze ever little detail causing him to create scenarios in his mind that give me anxiety. His mother notices his anger, but Hamlet makes it known that the distress he is feeling over-powers his actions. He says, “Together with all the forms, moods, shapes of grief… for they are the actions that a man might play; but I have that within which passes show, these but the trappings and the suits of woe” (ACT I, ii). He is angry at his mother because she remarried that same man that killed his father. Hamlet starts to see his father’s ghost and she cannot. She then starts to tell Hamlet how he has offended his father, as in Claudius. When Hamlet is defending