Justice in Hamlet

Many fictional characters are presented with unique circumstances that dictate their life long search for justice, often coming up empty-handed. One character that exemplifies this model of a person in searching for justice appears in Shakespeare’s novel, Hamlet. The title character, Hamlet, understands justice in terms of a noble revenge, but fails to take action, due to his weak disposition to act on his thoughts. Hamlet’s search for justice was not successful because his sense of “justice” was flawed, ultimately leading not only to his own death, but to Laertes who had a very similar mission to that of Hamlet. Hamlet’s fatal flaw leads to the question concerning what differentiates real justice from faux justice.

Beyond Claudius’ need for admiration, he also tends to disregard the feelings of people around him. This is shown in a similar way as his need for admiration, being that he kills his brother to gain power. Such a selfish action will obviously impact those around King Hamlet, but Claudius disregard that and simply does it for his own gain. He doesn’t think about how Hamlet’s death will affect Gertrude, young Hamlet, Polonius, or anyone else close to him. In the aftermath of this, instead of helping Hamlet through the hard time following his fathers sudden death, he tells Hamlet he’s not a man for mourning for such a long time. Staying on the topic of the death of a father, Claudius uses Polonius’ death to get Laertes to want to avenge his

This, in turn, exploits Hamlet’s similar flaw of ego and furthers the conflict, but what’s more, it illustrates Claudius’ sheer audacity and lack of repentance. He continues to try to cover up the sin and appease Hamlet into complacency rather than confess and ask for forgiveness. In a mark of pure arrogance, Claudius tells Hamlet to “throw to earth / This unprevailing woe and think of us / As of a father”, conceitedly requesting that Hamlet merely forget the murder and replace his father with the murderer himself (I, ii, 110-112). Similarly, instead of directly confronting Hamlet about his mental condition, the king more or less hires Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to spy on the prince, again cementing his smug mindset. The king does not believe he can be caught or, rather, that Hamlet is competent enough to figure out his plan and foil him. Claudius, too, thinks only of himself after Hamlet’s inadvertent killing of Polonius, pondering “how shall this bloody deed be answered? / It will be laid to us” instead of considering the ramifications of the murder with respect to Hamlet (4.1.17-18). The other two paper-thin traps the king hatches only reinforce his failure to see beyond the apparent; his attempt to deport Hamlet to England and have him killed reeks of treachery and, luckily, Hamlet realizes the king’s subterfuge, crushing the plot and flipping it back on him. Claudius remains steadfast in his efforts to remove Hamlet, going so far as to set up a

In Hamlet, a play by William Shakespeare, the protagonist Hamlet seeks to avenge his father’s death. The ghost of his father appears and tells Hamlet that Claudius murdered him. Claudius poisons his brother so that he can take the throne. Hamlet responds to the injustice of his father’s murder with his brand of justice, revenge.

The 21st century has become a time to remember with liberations in judgement against sexual orientation, race and gender. However, the process has been tedious to relieve the discrimination against women and the inequality forced upon them. Although we have made such advancements towards a complete equilibrium, this supremacy of the male gender has been present since ancient times and the longevity makes the repair harder than imagined. These problems are obvious in many different situations but can be illustrated in the lack of character development of the only two female roles in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Even a simple task as ignorance of women characters seems harmless, it’s an addition to the load of suffering our gender experiences each day. Although we have gotten so far as to have a women as a presidential candidate, we still face our everyday setbacks. Inequality in numerous industries and just overall disrespect has always been a problem but the newest major issue is sexual harassment and its effects. Unfortunately, sexual harassment has no limitations to age, heritage or location; and there are countless scenarios every day all over the globe. As inferiority of women is as old as society as we know it, it is finally time for a change. As the new generation of women, we are here to fight the ancient idea of inequality between genders that have been forced upon us since the

In Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Hamlet responds to the injustice of his father's murder by seeking revenge on Claudius in order to create justice; in seeking this revenge, Hamlet reveals that justice is complex and contains many uncertainties. After his father's unjust murder, Hamlet attempts to create justice by plotting to kill Claudius, and reveals that he has a clear view of justice, but does not always follow it. Hamlet's father, King Hamlet, was murdered by Claudius in a bid to take the throne, and Hamlet determined that in order to avenge the King he must kill Claudius. King Hamlet's death was unjust, because he was killed due to his status in cold blood.

Hamlet, a tragic hero with a feigned madness seeking revenge for his deceased father, kills everyone in his path and finally succeeded in taking vengeance for the murder of his father by killing the murderer, Claudius for good. Hamlet’s consistent desire to seek revenge for his father’s murderer, led him to foreseeable yet tragic downfall. In Hamlet, Shakespeare utilizes the acts of revenge throughout the play to show self destruction and confliction in through characters such as Hamlet. The theme of revenge causing self destruction is established in act two of the book by Hamlet himself.

In that play-within-a-play, Hamlet asks the players to perform a play he had been reading, but with added scenes to make Claudius show that he is guilty. In the play, there is a king and queen, the queen expresses her love for the king while the king is feeling gloomy. The king tells the queen how promises are not kept after the person they are promising dies. Later, when the king is sleeping, the king's nephew comes and pours poison into his ear and he dies.

Shakespeare uses the murder of king Hamlet with poison to show the corruption in Claudius by stooping so low to the point of poisoning someone while they sleep in a garden. Claudius grew highly jealous of his brother’s throne over time corrupting him the point of murder in a most foul degree. As Claudius’ corruption spreads throughout himself it starts to bleed out onto those near him, such as young Laertes. After Laertes hears of his father’s death at the hands of Hamlet he says: “to cut his throat I’ th’ church” Claudius responds, “no place indeed should murder sancturize \ revenge should have no bounds” (IV, 7, 144-146). Claudius has corrupted Laertes to the point he wants to commit one of the worst cardinal sins of his faith.

An unidentifiable person once stated “Revenge is a dish best served cold.” What this saying means is that revenge is best served with patience and not immediately. The relevance of this saying to the play – is Hamlet and his intent to murder King Claudius. He was very patient and considerate of the death of Claudius, believing he should kill him during a moment of sin, so the soul of Claudius would suffer in the fires of hell. However, Hamlets strive to avenge his father’s death lead to a series of deaths, rather than one.

A few years ago, when I was in 6th grade, I fought my best friend, over goldfish. He punched me, because I slapped goldfish out of his hand. Justice and forgiveness, are sometimes the same thing. Since justice and forgiveness can some times be the same thing, the can go hand in hand. But, they can also not go hand in hand.

Hamlet meets his end in a “joust” with Laertes, the son of Polonius. The battle was sparked when Claudius, Hamlet’s uncle and stepfather, had convinced Polonius that Hamlet was responsible for the death of his father. Sworn to avenge his father and save Denmark, Polonius poisons his blade and succeeds in wounding Hamlet, though he also cuts himself in the process. Signifying that vengeance and lies merely lead to suffering and death, a possible allusion to Christian

“O, that this too too sullied 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!” (Act 1 Scene 1, Hamlet) Hamlet’s idea of role-playing was truly important to Hamlet in the play, because it was his way of conducing revenge, for his father’s death. Hamlet acted deranging and irrational throughout the whole play, to cover up his capacity of killing Claudius, who was the killer of his father, King Hamlet. Hamlet’s actions of insaneness, led him to committing many mishaps in the play that completely disarranged his objective of obtaining revenge against Claudius. However, due to Hamlet’s exploitation in role-playing in the play, it precipitated him into temporizing and delaying his ability to obtain his revenge, which effected many characters along the way. Characters like Polonius, Ophelia, Laertes, Gertrude, and Claudius suffered dramatically throughout the whole play, because of Hamlet.

Hamlet uses Polonius’s initial interactions within a domestic setting and the royal court to establish Polonius’s character. When Polonius notarizes Reynaldo to spy on Laertes, Polonius lauds his method with such rhetorical flourishes as “wisdom and of reach” and “with windlasses and assays of bias,” to ensure that his ‘grand’ scheme is not lost on Reynaldo (2.1.61-62). The text chooses to show Polonius strutting such ornate rhetoric to commend himself, even when there is no one to impress beyond his own servant, to illustrate how Polonius is by his very nature pompous. When Polonius subsequently hears Ophelia relay her encounter with a deranged Hamlet, Polonius’s first instinct is to “go see the king,” rather than to comfort Ophelia beyond simply saying he’s sorry (2.1.114). Polonius’s primal instinct to serve his lord reveals a servile disposition baked into his very being. These intrinsic tendencies are hyperbolized through Polonius’s interaction with the royal family. Upon entering the court, Polonius immediately professes to “hold my duty … both to my God

William Shakespeare's “Hamlet” is a standout amongst the most tragic plays ever written. Throughout the play, several different people want revenge on somebody. Hamlet, the prince of Denmark, thinks of taking immediate, brutal revenge upon the current king of his country, his uncle, Claudius, who murdered Hamlet’s father, the original king, in order to take the crown and wed the Queen, Gertrude. When attempting to avenge his father by slaughtering his uncle, Hamlet unintentionally murders Polonius, the father of one of his closest friends Laertes. In turn, Laertes wants to avenge his father’s demise by murdering Hamlet. Hamlet’s father’s most despised adversary, the king of Norway, was executed by Hamlet’s father in a battle. The king of Norway’s