Hamlet tragedy is one of the most intriguing works of William Shakespeare. Hamlet was a prince of Denmark, who was so devastated after learning about the death of his father, the king of Denmark. A ghost appeared to him and revealed that Claudius who happens to be the king who succeeded his father, was the murderer. Hamlet decided to get into a quest to carry out revenge against his uncle. In the course of carrying out revenge his girlfriend, Ophelia commits suicide due to a heartbreak caused by Hamlet kills Polonius, who is Ophelia’s father while trying to demonstrate to the king that he knows who is the murderer of his father. The king instructs Hamlet to be murdered, and send hi to England but Hamlet escapes and finds his way back to Denmark. His mother Gertrude is poisoned by Claudius’s wine that he wanted Hamlet to drink. Hamlet manages to kill Claudius, but he is …show more content…
‘To be or not to be: that is the question whether ‘tis nobler in mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or take arms against the sea of troubles’ (Hamlet Pg 66 line 65). At that moment, Hamlet thought that the only way to show power was to kill himself because, with that, he would finally sleep peacefully. According to him, living is passive state while death is an active state. He believed killing himself was a possible way of taking action, and it is very empowering. However the active state has to be put into action while one is still living, but he is afraid of the life after death and how it feels like. He believed that he might not be able to control the life hereafter, just like he was not able to control his dreams while alive. This makes him change the direction of thinking. From the text, Hamlet shares his inner outlooks, contemplations and his plan for the days to come. He also reveals the state of stress, mental suffering, bitterness, confusion and fear that Hamlet was going
Hamlet is a tale of despair and murder. Throughout the play, Shakespeare weaves a web of death, love, and betrayal that intrigued people of the time period and is still read widely today. The tale tells of the death of a king, and it follows his son Hamlet, the prince of Denmark. Hamlet's uncle, Claudius, takes the throne and marries his dead brother's wife only a month after his death. Soon after the ghost of the old king appears to young Hamlet and tells him he was murdered by none other than his brother Claudius, the new king. Hamlet then tries to prove Claudius' guilt and begins to slip slowly into madness. The key points in the plot of Hamlet are the meeting with the ghost, proving Claudius' guilt, and the ironic and untimely deaths of different characters. In the play Hamlet, Shakespeare draws a picture very complex and intriguing using imagery and diction.
William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Hamlet relays Hamlet’s quest to avenge the murder of his father, the king of Denmark. The late King Hamlet was murdered by his brother, Claudius, who took the throne and Hamlet’s mother Gertrude for himself. Hamlet is beseeched by the ghost of his father to take vengeance upon Claudius; while he swears to do so, the prince inexplicably delays killing Claudius for months on end. Hamlet’s feeble attempt to first confirm his uncle’s guilt with a play that recounts the murder and his botched excuses for not killing Claudius when the opportunity arises serve as testimony to Hamlet’s true self. Hamlet is riddled with doubt towards the validity of the ghost and his own ability to carry out the act necessary to
Hamlet is a play written by William Shakespeare. Hamlet is about a prince who deeply misses his dad that was murdered. Hamlet’s mother Gertrude didn't really seem to mind her husband's death and remarries. She marries Claudius, King Hamlet’s brother. Hamlet does not like that his mother married Claudius. Hamlet sees his father's ghost and finds out that Claudius had murdered King Hamlet. Hamlet decides to kill Claudius, but let Heaven take care of Gertrude. Hamlet accidentally mistakes Polonius for Claudius and kills him. At the end of the play Hamlet is dueling Laertes, Polonius’s son. They are dueling because Laertes is upset that Hamlet killed Polonius. Laertes has poison on his sword to kill Hamlet and hits Hamlet with it. Laertes falls over a staircase accidentally and dies. Gertrude drinks from a cup to celebrate Hamlet winning two out of the three strikes against Laertes but the cup was poisoned and she dies. Claudius attempts to run away because he knew he had now killed Gertrude and Hamlet throws a sword at him which pins him to the throne chair and then a chandelier falls and hits Claudius. Then Hamlet runs over and opens Claudius’s mouth and
Hamlet was so obsessed with his lack of action and the worthlessness of life that he contemplates suicide asking, "For who could bear the whips and scorns of time" ( III. i. 69-70). He believes he would be foolish to suffer through his life when he will simply be
Now that the pressure has been lifted, Hamlet has the opportunity to ponder death, something that has demanded his attention since his father's demise. In the famous soliloquy Hamlet attempts to discard the appearance of death to dissect the survival instinct of human beings. Why, when death appears to be the desired escape from "a sea of troubles," do human beings refuse to succumb? (III.1 ln 59) Hamlet quickly grasps the inherent fear of the unknown present in the human psyche. This display of insightquickly disappears once Hamlet again faces emotional pressure. He somewhat maintains his ability to separate reality and appearance, but his intense passions stunt his efforts to remain on a direct course to his goals.
It is clear that the death of his father and his mother 's remarriage has taken an enormous mental toll on him and that he desires death to free himself of the burden laid upon him by the ghost. He romanticizes it, saying that suicide is the brave and courageous option akin to “[taking] arms” against troubles. However, he can’t commit to the idea of death, saying “To sleep, perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub / For in that sleep of death what dreams may come” (III, i, 66-67). He craves death, which would allow him to escape all the “natural shock / that flesh is heir to” (III, i, 63-64) but the more he ponders it, the further he is from reaching a decision. Ironically, the argument within his mind about how he should free himself of the ghostly burden — murder, or death — is impeding him from carrying out any action on it. At the end of his most famous soliloquy, Hamlet hasn’t made any decisive choice and therefore is in limbo regarding death due to his overarching rationale. His inaction proves “[his] endless reasoning and hesitation and the way in which the energy of his resolutions evaporates in self-reproaches” (Morgan 259). Moreover, Hamlet tackles the decision of interpreting what is real and what is false when he questions the ghost’s true nature. At first, Hamlet is certain
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.
In Hamlet’s famous soliloquy, he contemplates for a while whether to commit suicide. Hamlet’s unhappiness is caused by the people around him. His mother’s actions of marrying her brother-in-law made Hamlet extremely frustrated drawing him out of the right mental state. Meanwhile, his view of his father is godlike, but he distrusts the Ghost enough to think about killing himself instead of pursuing the Ghost’s request. In Hamlet’s famous soliloquy, “to be, or not to be;” he contemplates (3.1). “The Everlasting had not fixed, His cannon ‘gainst self-slaughter!” (1.2). He is uncertain if things would be any better in the afterlife if he were to end his life. Hamlet’s hesitancy, especially concerning suicide, is the cause of his realistic and frightened nature. In this situation, his indecisiveness saves his life, but it also does not allow him to find another solution. Concluding, in his soliloquy he would rather
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark is one of Shakespeare’s most tragic plays. Most of the characters in this play suffered a heartbreaking death, although, all of the characters faced anger, regret, madness or distress. Madness was a reoccurring theme in this play, two characters portrayed this more than others. Ophelia and Hamlet faced similar fates, with similarities and differences along the way, all to do with their madness.
Hamlet is asking himself if it would be easier to endure a never-ending sleep, or to suffer; he asks who would tolerate the whips and scorns of time, the oppressor's wrong against us, the disrespect of proud men, the pain of rejected love, the proudness of authorities, and the advantage that the worst people take of the best when one could just release himself with a blade? Hamlet wonders who would carry this load, sweating and grunting under the burden of life if one did not have to dread of the after life. By Hamlet's in-depth thoughts of suicide, it is apparent that Hamlet is depressed and does not enjoy his life. "Repetition of words such as calamity, scorns, oppressor, despised, dread and weary emphasize the mental trauma he is portraying ("Passage analysis of Hamlet")." "Hamlet's speech contains obsessive concerns with suicide and death. His representation of himself as mentally unstable is an attempt to accomplish his super-objective of avoiding
The main plot of Shakespeare's Hamlet centers around Prince Hamlet's desire to repay King Claudius for his evil deeds. Around this central action revolve the stories concerning the minor characters of Polonius and Ophelia. Though they do not motivate Hamlet's actions towards the King, these characters act as forces upon Hamlet himself, trying to spur him to do things he does not want to do. Both Polonius and Ophelia try, unsuccessfully, to manipulate Hamlet into a place of inferiority.
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles“ (Marx 15). The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx displays different ideas between the clashing social stances during his time. These thoughts highlight the several issues with the overbearing upper class showcasing the difference between social status and their given power in society. Similarly, the Marxist lens displays how the nobles gaining control of the social, economical, and political aspects of a society affect the lower class. William Shakespeare's Hamlet emphasizes division of social classes and unquenchable desire to obtain power through self- benefiting manipulation and misuse of authority.
During the beginning of the story, Hamlet saw death as some sort of easy exit. This can be seen during his soliloquy when he stated, “No more; and by a sleep to say we end the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks” (III. i. 68-69). Hamlet is saying that death is like a sleep that will end any hardships or problems. Despite his interpretation of death, he does not commit suicide because it would go against his beliefs being that suicide is a sin. The second reason stopping him from committing suicide was what he believed would happen after his death. He was afraid of what would occur after death, the afterlife was a mysterious “undiscovered country from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will and makes us rather bear those ills we have” (III.
Hamlet recognizes that suicide is a sin in the eyes of God, so consequently wishes that he could simply cease to exist. In doubting that life is worth all the hardships one must face, Hamlet briefly relishes in the concept of death, equating it to nothing more than a sleep wherein one can be rid of the “heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks” of physical life (III.i.70). Though immediately thereafter Hamlet acknowledges the startling unknown, and the fact that one does not know what comes after death. Hamlet feels a great deal of uncertainty, which surely enhances his overall frustration. Herein lies Hamlet’s reservations in regards to committing suicide: it is a sin, and the afterlife may prove to be more unpleasant than life itself.
Hamlet, a sociopathic narcissist uses vengeance, a retribution of an action done toward him. He uses the death of his father as justification for his actions. In his mind he believes he can use revenge to gain power and control. By using vengeance, he is convincing everyone in his surroundings of his power. In Shakespeare's play, “Hamlet”, a theme of power occurs often. Hamlet’s compulsion revolves around the death of his father. As a protagonist, Hamlet is also a hero. His actions toward his control, are both moral and immoral implications involved through demanding revenge.