The Laramie Project and Shakespeare

In William Shakespeare 's revenge tragedy play Hamlet, the prevailing themes of revenge, madness, and morality were recognized by the Elizabethan audience and appealed to them. The play 's central focus is on a young prince, Hamlet, who has gone through many challenges to avenge his father 's death. Prince Hamlet got his revenge on his deceitful uncle, Claudius, the same man who murdered his father and married Hamlet 's mother. From the original text of the play, a major scene in Act 4 shows where Hamlet decides that it 's time for vengeance, expressing it in a soliloquy. This scene would have appealed to the Elizabethan audience because they would observe Hamlet 's thoughts. In addition, the soliloquy would have expanded on the theme of revenge, and how it would affect the final scene. Finally, by emphasizing the theme of morality in his speech, it would have the audience to make connections towards their own consciousness. Shakespeare 's Hamlet successfully targets the Elizabethan audience in Hamlet 's speech from Act IV.

Shakespeare sprinkles subtle lines alluding to Hamlet’s apparent cowardice and failure as a classical revenger. In addition to this, Shakespeare may intentionally delay Hamlet’s revenge and remove emphasis from his passion to break the trend of morally blind, obsessive, psychopathic avengers as traditionally depicted in plays such as “The Spanish Tragedy”.

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).

“To be, or not to be, that is the question,” (3.1.64). This famous line in William Shakespeare's Hamlet perfectly encapsulates Hamlet’s internal struggle throughout the play. Hamlet tells the story of the young prince of Denmark and his desire for revenge on the uncle, Claudius, who murdered his father. As is the case in many works of literature, Hamlet changes greatly throughout the play. However, because of his attempts to act insane, it can be difficult to precisely map the changes in Hamlet’s character. By carefully investigating his seven soliloquies, where he is alone and has no need to “put on an antic disposition,” one can understand and interpret how Hamlet’s character develops throughout the play.

The relevance and significance of the revenge tragedy is in the way it explores human nature and forces audiences to evaluate ideologies such as revenge and justice. The concept of revenge is accompanied by moral conflict and Shakespeare demonstrates that by acting immorally society is likely to be riddled with corruption. Hamlet seeks to avenge the death of his father but struggles with the ramifications of seeking righteous revenge through an immoral act. The imposition of revenge instills the existential questioning on Hamlet as it contradicts his with his social expectation. His

When Hamlet is first asked to avenge his fathers’ death his loyalty invades his thoughts and emotions leading to iritic behavior from Hamlet as form of procrastination, as he is unsure of the information he given by the possible ghost of his late father. Shakespeare has made use of the stylistic features of rhetorical questions and biblical language to communicate Hamlets morals and fears to act on his loyalty, “And I shall couple hell?”. “To be or not to be, that is the question, Whether ‘Tis nobler in the mind to suffer”, Shakespeare has used this rhetorical question within a soliloquy to question whether to live or not to live, then states that it is more noble to suffer life passively then conclude in suicide. Shakespeare has applied dualism to this question within his play, to act on loyalty or to suffer without revenging his father’s death. Shakespeare unlike Hosseini has created a revenge tragedy through the overwhelming theme of revenge, which expresses the true price of Hamlets inaction to act on loyalty, in which the play ends the death of many characters including hamlet and his mother

Hamlet is conflicted with his fear and morals . He wants to fill his duty as a son and go on with the revenge but he is scared and feels like a cowered. passion and fear for revenge and Hamlet’s love and doubt toward his father’s ghost. This soliloquy develops Hamlet’s character as Hamlet is frustrated with himself. for he is not being courageous and to complete the revenge. He starts to be doubtful of ability and strength.

William Shakespeare’s famously philosophical play Hamlet epitomizes the revenge tragedy; the play’s characters are forced to act vengefully only to result in a bloody, dismal

Hamlet went from a mourning Prince of Denmark over the death of his father, to a revenge seeking murderer as the play progresses. This transition in character is evident through Hamlets meaning of life; the desire for justice. After the meeting with the ghost, his worldview completely changed to a craving for revenge. In today’s ever changing world, people who act on revenge are no longer socially acceptable. These people who act on revenge often commit mortal sins and heavy crimes and are set to life in prison. Hamlet is the only person to blame for his death because of his worldview. “A villain kills my father, and for that I, his sole son, do this same villain send to heaven.” (Shakespeare 3.3 76-78) At this point, Hamlet’s worldview is completely based on getting revenge for his father. There is nothing more important in life at the time. Hamlet has just killed Polonius mistaking him as Claudius. Moments later Hamlet is face to face with Claudius, but chooses not to kill him because he wants the worst for him. Hamlet says “ I, his sole son, do this same villain send to

You have to watch more Jerry Springer! (I’m not really serious). I like your observation about Hamlet’s revenge not being up to the reader. But I wonder if Shakespeare intended for it to be, letting readers work through Hamlet’s situation for themselves and decide what they would do in his position?

Throughout Hamlet, Shakespeare depicts the internal conflicts within the characters through the use of soliloquy. Shakespeare mastered the use of soliloquy in this work by conveying and portraying the contradictions in the mental processes of Hamlet and Claudius. The author’s use of soliloquies illustrates the internal conflict within Hamlet and further emphasizes the common themes revolving around revenge and doubt. In Act 3: Scene 3, Shakespeare incorporates a soliloquy where Hamlet’s internal conflict of doubt and revenge is evident: “Now might I do it pat. Now he is a-praying. And now I’ll do ’t. And so he goes to heaven. And so am I revenged.—That would be scanned” (Puchner 711). Hamlet attempts to kill Claudius while he is vulnerable, however, he hesitates and ponders with the contradictions of religion. Shakespeare illustrates the contradiction of the desire for revenge and the hesitation for revenge. He draws in religion by bringing focus to sin and the afterlife. Hamlet’s

Shakespeare’s use of language greatly influences the social, cultural and economic values of the time. Hamlet’s speech discusses the theme of revenge. He clearly describes

Shakespeare writes in a way that is difficult to understand for anyone that speaks the modern language. His story Hamlet is understood through the emotions felt by his characters. Hamlet is the main character who is conflicted with revenge and conspiring friendships. Hamlet returns home from Germany for his father’s funeral only to find far more troubling things. Hamlet is a conflicted character but that doesn’t stop him from knowing what he wants. Revenge is the main cause of his confliction but with great reason, which is important to understand about this play because it helps explain all the betrayal and tragedy.

While I have gone to a few live events, the only theatrical one that I seem to remember was the one live event I paid the least attention to. In my junior year of high school, everyone in our year who was taking the Shakespearean English class took a field trip to the Tennessee Shakespeare Company that operated out of a building located about fifteen minutes from my school. The aim of the field trip was to learn more about Shakespeare from a perspective based more on producing and acting, rather than one based on purely the script. Naturally, as we were given the exceedingly rare opportunity to not attend more than half of our classes that day, we were incredibly hyped up… for everything that was not related to Shakespeare. Now, this does not mean that we all hated Shakespeare, because a few of us did enjoy a few of his works that we had read so far. However, when it comes to the choice between something remotely academic, and something not, the something not will win 9 out of 10 times, especially if you are dealing with around 70-80 sixteen and seventeen year old guys. It did not help that I had a supplementary football workout form 6:00 to 7:30 in the morning that day and wanted to do nothing but chill that day, rather than do something educational.

Change can truly be a scary concept for some people to grasp. Some people change for the best or some change for the worst. Hamlet is an individual constantly watched because of his change of behavior, speech and thinking. Many of his peers realize that Hamlet has changed for the worst and even gone mad. It is noticeable to many that Hamlet has the biggest character development in the text. Hamlet’s character undergoes many behavioral changes when he is told by his father to avenge his wrongful murder by killing Claudius. I believe Hamlets transformation by revenge is a three stage process in which he evolves to a being consumed by revenge and vengeance.