Shakespeare's Hamlet - A Clear Revenge Tragedy? Essay

murder in a rash mood. It is not seen by Gertrude. It tries to urge

The Ghost of Hamlet's father is a foil for Hamlet. The ghost is introduced so to reveal information that is not blatantly revealed to us yet. The king gives us some explanation of why Hamlet wants revenge. The king tells us of his death and introduces the fact that it was a murder and tells that the murder was committed by his brother. Through the conversation with the ghost he gains more fuel for the anger he has about his mother’s marriage. In the discussion with Hamlet and the

In the play by William Shakespeare, the ghost of King Hamlet approaches his mourning and depressed son, Hamlet, who is still affected by his death. The ghost explains to Hamlet how he died and demands that Hamlet avenge his death. Note how the ghost approaches Hamlet when he’s the weakest and still mourning to persuade and manipulate him into taking revenge for him. In Act one Scene 5 the ghost states, “If thou didst ever thy dear father love-/ Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.” The way King Hamlet words his request is more as a challenge; in which Hamlet’s love for his dead father can only be proven by carrying out whatever his father wishes. The ghost influences most Hamlet’s behavior, which not only affects the plot, but also the relationships with other characters. The ghost influences the relationship between Hamlet and his mother, Gertrude. He becomes angry at Gertrude because of her fast marriage with his uncle Claudius. Through the use of innuendos, antic disposition, and metamorphic plays, Hamlet makes it his duty to get King Claudius back for killing his father. Hamlet agreed to avenge his father without second thought. As the play advances, Hamlet begins to doubt the apparition. In act 3 Hamlet begins to have second thoughts and states, “The spirit that I have seen/ May be a devil…” This shows Hamlet’s inner conflict between listening to his father and avenging his death or following his ethics. To be sure that Claudius

Revenge is a recurring theme in Hamlet. Although Hamlet wants to avenge his father’s death, he is afraid of what would result from this. In the play Hamlet, Hamlet’s unwillingness to revenge appears throughout the text; Shakespeare exhibits this through Hamlet’s realization that revenge is not the right option, Hamlet‘s realization that revenge is the same as the crime which was already committed, and his understanding that to revenge is to become a “beast” and to not revenge is as well (Kastan 1).

Throughout Shakespeare's Hamlet, intersperse various symbols to describe Hamlet’s mental state. As he does so, the symbols also show exhibit Hamlet’s great debate between acting and contemplating. Within the play, the ghost contributes to Hamlet’s actions to a great degree. Hamlet only seeks revenge because the ghost has asked him to do so and kill Claudius. The ghost symbolizes his haunting memories and the debate between reality and imagination. When the ghost first appeared before him, he has dedicated

     Hamlet’s friendship with his third colleague from this group is much different compared to that of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Horatio, also a classmate at Wittenburg, does not appear initially to occupy the same social status as did the former two. He addresses Hamlet and says, "The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever." So Horatio may be from a lower social-economic class. Like Hamlet, he sees a ghost, but is not sure that the ghost was the king, as he admits to only seeing the king once before, another argument for Horatio’s unfamiliarity with the royal family. 

"The time is out of joint: O cursed spite, / That ever I was born to set it right!" (I.5). Shakespeare's Hamlet is an unwilling avenger. Despite his hatred of his uncle Claudius and his sense of the injustice perpetuated upon his father's memory, Hamlet seems unable to obey the will of his father's ghost. Ultimately, this is not shown to be a sign of weakness or cowardice upon Hamlet's part. Rather, the intellectual protagonist understands all too well the futility of attempting to use violence to enact justice. By attempting to become an avenger, Hamlet simply begets more violence.

We get more insight into Hamlet's mind after he meets the ghost of his father. He is speaking to his confidant and friend Horatio:

This belief relates to the play because the Ghost of Hamlet’s father decides to visit Denmark and makes everyone question his visitation. Clark states that ghosts appear to “obtain revenge”, although this appears to be true as to the reason Hamlet’s father’s Ghost appears, it is not the actual reason. The Ghost is there to ask Hamlet to “revenge his foul and most unnatural murder” (Shakespeare 57). In other words, the Ghost is not there to seek revenge physically, but to have Hamlet seek revenge on Claudius for killing him. The Ghost makes his visitation to specifically ask Hamlet to seek revenge on his murderer; however, he does not force Hamlet to seek revenge. Since the ghost does not force Hamlet to seek revenge he appears to the audience that he is a good ghost because he does not hurt anyone and does not appear violet. Therefore, because the Ghost has not been physical this situation allows the audience to become aware that he is a good ghost.

Of Horatio we know best that what distinguishes him from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and indeed from Polonius, Ophelia, Laertes, and Gertrude, is that Claudius cannot use him. Critics have remarked upon Horatio’s ambiguously shifting status at the court of Denmark, and the late William Empson confessed a certain irritation at Hamlet’s discovery of virtues in Horatio that the prince could not find in himself. Yet Shakespeare gives us a Hamlet we must love while knowing our inferiority, since he has the qualities we lack, and so he also gives us Horatio, our representative, who loves so stoically for the rest of us. Horatio is loyal, and limited; skeptical as befits a fellow student of the profoundly skeptical Hamlet, yet never skeptical about Hamlet. Take Horatio out of the play, and you take us out of the play. The plot could be rearranged to spare the wretched Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, even to spare Laertes, let alone Fortinbras, but remove Horatio, and Hamlet becomes so estranged from us that we scarcely can hope to account for that universality of appeal which is his, and the play’s, most original characteristic. (5)

The ghost was not looking to do Hamlet any good. The ghost had his own agenda. The ghost revealed to Hamlet the truth about the murder of Hamlet’s father. The ghost also told him who was to blame: “The serpent that did sting thy father’s life now wears his crown” (I.5. 38-39). The ghost ignited a rage inside of Hamlet. Revenge replaced the grief in Hamlet’s heart. The play does not reveal if the ghost is the devil or the ghost of Hamlet’s father. However I do not think that Hamlet’s father would have wanted to end another life to make up for his. The deaths that occur in the play could have been avoided if the ghost had never appeared. The truth would have come out eventually and maybe Hamlet would have a clear head by that time. If the ghost was the devil I am sure that he was pleased with what transpired in the play.

Self- knowledge is when a person gain understanding of their selves. It is when they recognize their goals and abilities. Hamlet was bitter in the beginning of the play, due to his father’s death. He was disgusted with his mother, and he had hatred for his uncle Claudius. Hamlet felt this way because his father had just died and his mother had already re- married and to his uncle, which made him become his father. Hamlet’s goal was to avenge his father’s death, but he first needed to gain the strength and right plan to do so. Othello on the other hand was looked upon as a noble man, a hero in the beginning of the play. But by him being naïve he was tricked into believing that his love, Desdemona, betrayed him. This caused Othello to try to

Hamlet trusts Horatio completely. It is to Horatio that Hamlet writes upon his return to Denmark, and Horatio to whom he confides his thoughts before the duel: “the readiness is / all. Since no man has aught of what he leaves, what / is't to leave betimes” (V. ii. 223-225)? Hamlet has not placed this much confidence in anyone else; it is only to Horatio that he reveals his true feelings.

“Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder,'; demands the ghost in (Act I, Scene 5, line 23). The fact that his own uncle could kill his father leaves Hamlet crazy and confused. Although Hamlet knows something is wrong in Denmark, he begins to question everything that the ghost has told him. When something is needed to be done, Hamlet is to busy thinking about his

Hamlet is one of Shakespeare’s most well-known tragedies. At first glance, it holds all of the common occurrences in a revenge tragedy which include plotting, ghosts, and madness, but its complexity as a story far transcends its functionality as a revenge tragedy. Revenge tragedies are often closely tied to the real or feigned madness in the play. Hamlet is such a complex revenge tragedy because there truly is a question about the sanity of the main character Prince Hamlet. Interestingly enough, this deepens the psychology of his character and affects the way that the revenge tragedy takes place. An evaluation of Hamlet’s actions and words over the course of the play can be determined to see that his ‘outsider’ outlook on society,