Many years ago, Shakespeare wrote: “To be or not to be? That is the question.” We’ve all heard that famous quote from Hamlet misquoted. The actual meaning of the quote is more along the lines of questioning whether to exist or not. The young prince of Denmark is contemplating suicide. That type of deep sadness is something that no one could understand unless they’ve actually been in that pit of despair. Do you know what it’s like to have the overwhelming pressure of sadness in your chest? You feel as though you’re drowning in an above-ground pool with glass walls. You see people prancing around and living their lives happily. Most of them don’t even realize you’re there. The occasional good samaritan stops by to ask if you are okay, but they don’t stay long enough to even hear your response. …show more content…
For some reason, you can’t seem to swim back up to the surface, let alone take a breath. It’s almost as if you have a chain tied to your heart that’s weighing you down. As time goes on, the walls don’t get lower. They become higher; filling with more and more water, which means more and more pressure. Every once and awhile, you get tired of trying to struggle to the surface. You relax for a while in complete submission to the pressure that threatens to crush you. You can hear people calling out to you. Then, you see the blurred shape of someone you love standing outside of the wall screaming at you. They are trying with all of their might to get to you. You realize you want to go to them, too. You try to break through the walls. You’re both banging on them and trying to reach each other, but the walls are too strong. Your walls that you built around you for protection are now stopping anyone from caring about you again. You try struggling to the surface, but you’re too tired. Redemption is too far away. You mostly just wish you could stay at the bottom of that crushing pressure and just disappear
"’Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, / nor customary suits of solemn black / [ . . . ] but I have that within which passeth show; / these but the trappings and the suits of woe” (Shakespeare 1.2.76-73, 85-86) says Hamlet when confronted about his way of grieving over his father’s recent death. Shakespeare’s play Hamlet is a remarkable tale that is centered on the idea of death and grief. While death is a universal occurrence, meaning every person will deal with it, how we grieve after a loss is completely individual. To look at a formula of grief, most turn to the five stages of grief developed by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, a psychiatrist, who studied the topic in her book On Death and Dying. This model consists of denial, anger,
Critic Northrop Frye stated that a tragic figure functions as an instrument to the suffering of others. In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare the tragic figure Claudius bring suffering to others as a result of his actions As a result of Claudius's actions in the play the behaviors contribute to the tragic vision of the work as a whole.
At best, I believe that Act I, Scene II might be one of the most important parts of Hamlet. It prepares any reader with the character’s styling of Hamlet, its importance to the play, its characters, and the logical play on words to show the complexity of Shakespeare’s skills as a playwright. Though, it might be a bit of over-aggrandizing to say that the first Act and second scene could be so crucial. It set the tone of the play for many of the characters and their motives from Claudius, Gertrude, and Hamlet. The Act shows the true nature of many of the characters and where they stand in the apparent and the hidden stance. As the scene begins, we see Claudius come straight out as the antagonist, though not immediately. He (Claudius) begins to establish himself as King of Denmark but it is until Hamlet makes his appearance that we see some of Claudius’s attributes.
In the playwright Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Hamlet often shows many signs of depression. It is argued whether he is putting on the act, or if he is actually severely depressed. I believe after the death of his father, Hamlet becomes very emotionally unstable. Three things affect Hamlet, the death of his father, the remarriage of his mother, and Ophelia. Hamlet contemplates death, and becomes prepared to die near the end of the play.
Death is a major theme in Hamlet and through Shakespeare’s astonishing words in his “To be, or not to be,” soliloquy; it is obvious that Hamlet is conveyed as a troubled character. He is unsure about death. “To be, or not to be, that is the question:” (line 1), proves that Hamlet is troubled because the use of a colon is a sign that he is not only answering his own question, but he is
It is not an uncommon occurrence for a person to attend a funeral in their lifetime. They will experience the heavy feeling in their heart, hear the moaning and crying, and observe all the grief-stricken people, wiping tear-stained cheeks and wearing depressing, dark colors. Each person in this scene is attempting to comprehend what they have lost. Loss, whether physical or mental, can dismantle a person. The bonds and connections that people forge with each other defines their existence and gives them the drive to continue living, but when these bonds are broken the brain cannot cope with the detachment. A person is particularly vulnerable in this state and will do anything to replace the gaping hole that lingers in their life. In the novel The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski and the Shakespearean play Hamlet, two women are put through various kinds of loss. While these women--Trudy and Gertrude--appear weak, they willingly accept the enchantments of Claude and Claudius only after enduring hardships which skew their judgments, revealing the effect of trauma and depression when a relationship is lost.
“Take these again; for to the noble mind, Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind (Act 3 scene 1). Ophelia softly and nobly points out to Hamlet that however fancy and rich a gift may be, it loses any value when the person who gave the gift turns to be one of the false motives and wicked emotion. Like most women, Ophelia values the emotion and thought put into gifts of love, not the materialistic gift itself. Hamlet has been criticized for hundreds of years, enduring virtually every facet of Shakespeare's life and the ties to his play Hamlet. In “Hamlet’s Not Depressed, He’s Grieving.” by O’Rourke, the critic focuses on Hamlet’s reaction to his father’s death and the ghost he see’s, questioning the idea of whether or not Hamlet has literally
It is true that Hamlet becomes emotionally depressed regarding his father, mother, and uncle. However, his depression does not force him to go insane. In the beginning of the play, when the ghost informs him about the death of King Hamlet and Claudius’s involvement, Hamlet is aware that he needs to avenge his father. His emotions are hurt badly, and he plans to dig down to know the truth behind his father’s death. There are instances where a couple of castle guards and Horatio witness the ghost in the castle. Only after being informed from Horatio, Hamlet was able to see the ghost and converse with it. Hamlet plans so well to pretend to be insane that he tells his friend not to worry about his behavior; he is only acting. As the play progress, he becomes more successful in fooling people to believe that he is indeed insane. Nevertheless, this act of madness did not go out of his hands. He has an intended purpose of everything he is doing throughout the play. Also, he wants to know whether his mother is aware of his uncle’s crime and married him in spite of it. He suspects his own mother. What Hamlet actually did is, urge his mother to repent choosing Claudius over his father. “Such an act That blurs the grace and blush of modesty. Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose And sets a blister there, makes marriage vows As false as dicers’ oaths (3.4).” In this he tries to express his frustration and makes his mother realize that she has made a mistake by marrying Claudius. Furthermore, in one of the scenes in the play, Claudius confesses to killing King Hamlet. He says, “Oh, my offence is rank. It smells to heaven. It hath the primal eldest curse upon ‘t, A brother’s murder. Pray can I not. Though inclination be as sharp as will, My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent (3.3)”. This confession proves that what the ghost told Hamlet about his father’s death is true. Hamlet was not insane, he was however paranoid. In the article “Paranoid Personality Disorder”, it was mentioned that “people with paranoid personalities rarely confide in others, and tend to misinterpret harmless comments and behavior as malicious” (Paranoid Personality Disorder). This means that, when a person is emotionally
#NOTALLMEN Depression consumes everything. It lingers in the corners of the mind. It whispers in ears, kindling doubt and anger, resurrecting fears. Depression forms barricades. It isolates.
“To be or not to be— that is the question.” An exceptionally recognized phrase amid many centuries, cultures, places, and people. This short excerpt derives from the Shakespearean play, Hamlet: The Tragedy of the Prince of Denmark. Originally, this passage was displayed in one of the soliloquies of the play. Defined as “an act of speaking one's thoughts aloud when by oneself or regardless of any hearers, especially by a character in a play”, a soliloquy is crucial to furthering the plot and connecting the audience with the speaker. William Shakespeare reveals the true desires and intentions of Hamlet, the main character of Hamlet: The Tragedy of the Prince of Denmark, within the protagonist’s soliloquies. Even Hamlet, one of the most complex characters in literary history, can be simplified through the use of a soliloquy.
Madness and depression are thought to be the same word used to describe people. However, madness is where an individual is deemed mentally ill. While depression is the where an individual is seen to be in relatively low spirits and causes harm to oneself. Two characters, Hamlet and Laertes, in the play represent those ideals periodically throughout the play. Once Hamlet decided to have gone crazy, that mental state consumed his natural thoughts and replaced them with unstable thoughts that appeared to others as he had gone mad.
Korianna Holloway Ms. Scherer AP Lit & Comp Spring 2017 In the well known classic play, Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s focus remains on not only the state Hamlet’s mental and emotional stability during his quest for revenge but also Laertes. Their emotions gradually spin out of control throughout the play with causing both men to act impulsively as anger and revenge cloud their minds. Shakespeare’s depictions of Hamlet’s sanity and obsession with revenge reveal that anger prompts both Hamlet and Laertes to act spontaneously, not giving any thought to the consequences of their actions which suggests not only is anger a destructive emotion but it is also the key to taking action.
Have you ever felt as if your mind was pulling you in two entirely different directions? Has there ever been a moment in which your judgement lapsed and the decision made was more rushed, opposed to one being thought out? Was there ever a point in time where you simply did not know which choice to follow due to the abstract differences in the results they might bring? All of these occurrences happened repeatedly within the play Hamlet. The main character or protagonist, Hamlet, is overcome with two strikingly different feelings towards the situation his life is currently in following the death of his father. He is initially filled with feelings of innocent despair and depression; however, those understandable emotions soon morph into blinding craziness and unhinged rage. The significant change in Hamlet’s emotions both drive the storyline as well as push the implied meaning of how thought processes work differently for everyone.
“To be, or not to be: That is the question”(3.1.58). This is probably the most famous quote in all of Shakespearean literature and was uttered by the main character, Hamlet, of the play “Hamlet” written by Shakespeare. It demonstrates his instability and suicidal thoughts. Throughout the play he comes off as a very unpredictable and complex character. He makes many rash decisions, but at the same time often takes a lot of time to contemplate many of his choices. Through Hamlet’s language and voice, we can examine what type of character Shakespeare created. Hamlet acts differently towards people in contrast to his actual thoughts, which are projected through his soliloquies. Due to the insanity
When Animal Farm was first published in 1945, the end of World War Two had finally drawn near and the people of Europe, North America, and other communities across the country had grown weary of the misuse of power on a global level. The rise of the Soviet Union in Russia represented a new potential threat for the countries of the Western world as the same strategies and tactics that Soviet leaders used to come into and maintain power had been seen in the early stages of countless other countries beforehand. The guise in which these Soviet leaders claimed their authority, however, was much more subtle and in the eyes of their subjects, justified, than the direct and brutal rise to power other totalitarian governments had crafted beforehand. Orwell noticed the spread of propaganda and misinformation among the people of the Soviet Union and related it in much the same way to the culture of complicity which the Nazis had fostered among their own people just a few years prior. Orwell’s novel, Animal Farm, explores this sense of naiveté among the masses and attempts to characterize it through the eyes of animals rather than humans in order to give the absurdity of the phenomenon a physical representation. Through the use of both observational techniques of recognizing specific instances where naiveté was used as a tool for totalitarian government as well as argumentative tactics meant to convey the significance of this theme in the novel as a whole it is clear to see that the