Samuel Beckett’s Exploration of Consciousness: The Significance of Content and Presentation in his Play, Not I

William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, is a timeless play which continues to remain relevant across all generations due to its presentation of ideas that are fundamental to humanity. The play highlights aspects that relate to the society of not only Elizabethan England but also that of our modern society. Hamlet, as a character, considers ideas from outside his time and is somewhat relatable to modern day man. By drawing from ideas of archetypes and the human psyche, it reveals that Hamlet relates deeply to the elements of humanity.

In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Prince Hamlet serves as one of the most multi-faceted characters in the entire play with critics often deeming his personality “paradoxical”. Ultimately, Hamlet provides the audience with the epitomy of internal contrast and instability by rapidly transitioning through periods of caution and rash action, introversion and extroversion and calculation and spontaneity.

Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy is conceivably the most prominent soliloquy in the archive of the theatre. Even now, more than 400 years after it was originally written there is still an air of familiarity that reaches others even if they do not know the play itself in detail. In act 3, scene 1, Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” Soliloquy is critical in developing the plot because this is when Hamlet discusses his most suicidal thoughts.

Hamlet by William Shakespeare is a story about a king that was murdered by his brother and the prince has been asked by his father?s ghost to avenge his murder. The original story line has been altered a few times since it has been written. The original Hamlet the play and the altered Hamlet the movie are shown differently in many different ways. Hamlet the movie with Mel Gibson shows different things than the play, but there are three major differences between the two. The three major differences are in the way both of the productions start out, differences in the scene that the players put on a play, and differences in the way the productions end.

Hamlet’s sanity has made many people question him. “Hamlet certainly displays a high degree of mania and instability throughout much of the play, but his “madness” is perhaps too purposeful and pointed

It is something everyone does, continuously, in everything we do; a running dialogue of thoughts always occupying our minds, perceptible to only us. In everyday life, this common train of thoughts is never scrutinized or examined, but in literature, it is something referred to as stream of consciousness and it is what will be surveyed in this essay. The two stories being observed are Katherine Porter’s “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall”, a short story about an 80-year-old woman’s thoughts and memories as she lives out her last day. The second story is James Joyce’s “Araby”, the fictional story of a young boy in Dublin and his infatuation with a girl in his neighborhood. This essay will examine stream of consciousness vital role in these

Rothman expresses that “Freud thought that prudery and denial had for centuries prevented critics from acknowledging the play’s propulsive undercurrent, which, he believed, the new psychoanalytic vocabulary made it possible to acknowledge. “The conflict in ‘Hamlet’ is so effectively concealed,” he wrote, “that it was left to me to unearth it” (Rothman 5). However, it is important to note that although this literary analysis and theology is a valid breakthrough in how one views and acknowledges Hamlet, it is by no means an all-explanatory guide to the soul existence that is Hamlet. Rothman mistakes the Oedipus Complex (Freud theology regarding Hamlet) as the root of the play, arguing “the Oedipus complex provides the definitive interpretation of ‘Hamlet”. It is naive and arrogant to assume one definitive analysis technique (in this case psychoanalysis) as the majority of the play; in reality, it is the infinite number of analyzations spoken about by an infinite number of critics that make up the true meaning of Hamlet. In simpler terms, the true meaning is the decades of diversely collective thoughts, analysis, and ideas presented as the play’s

    Does the Shakespearean drama Hamlet represent a strictly secular writing, or does it veer into the spiritual dimension from time to time? This essay will delve into the spiritual side of the play.

One potential worry that one might have upon reading Daniel Dennett's "Where Am I?," is about the complications that might arise from Dennett categorizing his brain, who he calls Yorick, and his body, who he calls Hamlet, as two distinct entities. One may contend that the brain and the body are in fact only one entity, connected much in the same way that other people's brains and bodies seem to be connected—however that may be—with the exception of an unusually large temporal gap between Dennett's brain and Dennett's body in this case. Unfortunately, however, this worry is ultimately unclear and incoherent, but if expressed in different terms, it is possible to make sense of the underlying idea . In this paper, I will describe this worry,

“There is no truth. There is only perception.” a knowledgeable quote by French novelist, Gustave Flaubert, discussing how humans perceive things versus reality. Perception is how one interprets the world and its individuals through their own knowledge and experiences; therefore, there is a diverse amount of viewpoints on the same subjects and people. As a result, those who are capable of perceiving situations accomplish more than those who are incapable. In Hamlet, William Shakespeare develops the theme that those who are incapable of perceiving others leads to punishment, however, those who successfully perceive are rewarded. This theme can be proven through three major characters: Claudius, the main antagonist, Gertrude, the mother of the main character, and Hamlet, the main character. These characters portray both successful and failed attempts of perception throughout the play.

When analyzing Shakespeare's Hamlet through the deconstructionist lens various elements of the play come into sharper focus. Hamlet's beliefs about himself and his crisis over indecision are expounded upon by the binary oppositions created in his soliloquies.

Nearly every character in the play at some point has to make inferences from what he or she sees, has been told or overhears. Likewise, nearly every character in the play at some point plays a part of consciously pretending to be what they are not. The idea of acting and the illusion it creates is rarely far from the surface -

The multiplicity of meanings and (re)interpretations informing critical studies of The Awakening reveal a novel ripe for deconstructionist critique. Just as Chopin evokes an image of the sea as symbolic of Edna’s shifting consciousness (“never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander in abysses of solitude,”138), likewise the deconstructionist reading of a text emphasizes fluidity over structure: “A text consists of words inscribed in and inextricable from the myriad discourses that inform it; from the point of view of deconstruction, the boundaries between any given text and that larger text we call language are always shifting,” (297). From this

Hamlet, a play by William Shakespeare, is as much a mystery as a tale about depression, madness and sanity. Shakespeare reveals how the scourge of corruption and decay rapidly spread; and the emotional consequences that follow. Insanity, madness and depression are as intolerable as corruption and deceit; and just as intertwined. The play makes one ponder if it is possible to be sane in an insane world full of treachery, revenge, incest, and moral corruption? By examining the themes of melancholy, madness and sanity in Hamlet, Shakespeare details his character’s descent from depression to madness. Additionally, Hamlet’s psychological state can be

If one wants to truly understand the psychological implications of William Shakespeare's Hamlet, the primary focus should be on the character Hamlet, and how he develops and modifies throughout the play. Using the fundamentals of the psychoanalytic perspective of critical evaluation, one would be able to truly identify and explore the true nature of Hamlet, and the effects that his character has on the situation surrounding him. In order to gain a true understanding of most of the detail that is implied through Hamlet's way of portraying himself to others, it is vital to look deep into the actions that are carried out, and analyze them psychoanalytically.