The Pitiful Ghost in Hamlet
In Shakespeare’s tragic drama, Hamlet, there is one character who is different from all the others. He is a supernatural being – a Ghost. His role is quite as important as anyone else’s. This essay will be devoted to an explanation of this Ghost.
Maynard Mack in “The World of Hamlet” elucidates the reader on how the Ghost introduces the problem of appearance versus reality:
The play begins with an appearance, an “apparition,” to use Marcellus’ term – the ghost. And the ghost is somehow real, indeed the vehicle of realities. Through its revelation, the glittering surface of Claudius’ court is pierced, and Hamlet comes to know, and we do, that the king is not only hateful to him but
…show more content…
A real event described at the beginning of the drama has exercised a profound influence upon the whole imagery of the play. What is later metaphor is here still reality. The picture of the leprous skin disease, which is here – in the first act – described by Hamlet’s father, has buried itself deep in Hamlet’s imagination and continues to lead its subterranean existence, as it were, until it reappears in metaphorical form (232-33).
Gunnar Boklund’s “Judgment in Hamlet” introduces the Ghost in terms of the dilemma of the protagonist:
It is a commonplace to refer to Hamlet’s “dilemma” and a critical problem to explain in what this dilemma consists. A natural way to come to terms with the problem is obviously through the character that forces the dilemma upon Hamlet, that is to say, the Ghost. This is a particularly attractive approach, since it promises to bring the findings of modern research into Elizabethan demonology to bear directly upon the question of the nature of the Ghost and its message. It was apparently generally believed,
The Ghost in Hamlet is a widely controversial topic with arguments determining whether the Ghost is a “goblin damn’d” or a “spirit of health.” (1.4.40) “‘A spirit of health’ is one, which comes from heaven with charitable intentions, and ‘a goblin damn’d’ is one, which comes from Hell with wicked intentions.” The Ghost only has two appearances in the play and is a symbol for uncertainty, yet it is important as it catalyses the play into action and also Hamlet into madness. The Ghost in Hamlet is an evil spirit returning to revenge his killer Claudius; which is a questionable action for a Catholic person leading the audience to believe that the Ghost is evil. He pressures Hamlet into revenging Claudius while destroying Hamlet’s
Immediately following Hamlet's conversation with the Ghost, he is determined to fulfill the Ghost's wishes. However, the next time he appears in the play, which is long after the Ghost's visit, he has not yet done the deed. He is plagued by questions of death and the supernatural. What
Hamlet questions the true intentions of the ghost and whether it be “a spirit of health or goblin damn’d,” (1.4.669). The Ghost enlightens the Prince of the treason committed by his uncle Claudius, which Hamlet doubts the legitimacy for an instance. According to “Hamlet’s Precarious Emotional Balance,” “Hamlet conceives a way out of his uncertainty, a way to make certain that he has not, because of his melancholy, simply hallucinated the ghost's revelations or been tricked by an evil spirit,” (Lidz). Hamlet develops a scheme to “catch the conscience of the king” by staging a play that depicts the murder of King Hamlet precisely (2.2.581).
Hamlet has thrust upon him the dual responsibility of avenging his father and becoming a man. These new responsibilities push Hamlet’s already fragile sanity over the edge into madness. “Hamlet experiences anxiety both because of the dysfunction of previous masculine roles and because of his shames at their loss, a loss he holds himself accountable for” (Rosen, 63). Hamlet is instantly roused from a bout of depression at Horatio’s news of the ghost. Hamlet undoubtedly feels that this ghost might be able to put his mind at rest.
At around ten o’clock at night, a young girl was laying in bed when all of a sudden someone started rubbing her cheek. She looked around and no one was there. Was this her imagination, or was someone there? Ghosts always make their presence known, just like the Ghost in the tragedy Hamlet written by William Shakespeare. Throughout the character of the Ghost of Hamlet’s father, Shakespeare portrays many Elizabethan beliefs on ghosts. Shakespeare creates the question: is the ghost good or bad? Many people have their own opinion on this question, but in this writer’s opinion, the Ghost of Hamlet’s father is a good ghost because throughout the tragedy the Ghost of Hamlet’s father never physically hurts anyone, instead he persuades Hamlet
(II.2 ln 547-585) He mistakenly awards the pretense the same degree of authenticity as his own reality receives. However, because of the disparity between the actor's performance and Hamlet's own actions, Hamlet gains needed motivation. He remains uncertain of the ghost's reliability, confused by the seemingly genuine grief of the actor. Nonetheless, it is this uncertainty that provides Hamlet with the less disturbing purpose of proving the ghost's story in contrast to the more daunting intention of murder.
In the beginning of story, the author uses the textual treatment of Hamlet’s father’s ghost by appearing to Hamlet and three of the night guards. Shakespeare
Throughout the play ‘Hamlet‘, we see that the protagonist seems troubled and quite isolated. The Shakespearean play is believed to have been first performed between 1600 and 1601 but not published until 1603. Hamlet is the young prince of Denmark, his mother Gertrude married her brother-in-law shortly after her husband (Hamlet’s father) died. In the Elizabethan era many people believed in supernatural forces and this is displayed within the play when Hamlet’s father returns as a ghost. Many people would argue that Hamlet is possessed and his madness and strange behaviour is partly due to his father’s death and his reoccurrence as a ghost.
Does the ghost in Shakespeare’s Hamlet conform to the standards for ghosts in the days of the dramatist? This essay will answer this and other questions about the ghost in the drama.
The ghost in Hamlet is the subject of many literary critiques; in my research I came across two articles in particular about this topic that caught my interest. In particular, Zimmerman’s article explores Kristeva theory of abjection. The reaction from a threatening breakdown in meaning caused by the loss of the ability to distinguish between subject/self and object/other. The human corpse is one of the most common causes of this reaction because it reminds the living of their own materiality. Upon reading this I was able to relate it to Hamlet as Zimmerman did, “When the ghost first appears, he comes encased in armor, a "portentous figure," a "fair and warlike form" (1.1.112, 50). What lies behind the armor is of course a corpse: if what makes Hamlet Sr. seem alive is his battle-ready fierceness, then what makes him an "illusion" is the mystery within. "no/thing," an apprehensible outside enclosing and
This article is an introduction of fiction in Hamlet. The author is Charlie Griffith and it is written in 2015. The article is discussing the fact that ghosts are a way to represent death and are used to connect the magical and the real words in literature. Ghosts are a result of death and they can have a positive role in the play as it is in Hamlet or they also can be
Even though Hamlet seems ardent in his intentions of avenging his father’s death during his encounter with the Ghost, by the second act, Hamlet begins to doubt that the ghost was actually his father. While giving his soliloquy after he has seen
The ghost made the whole situation for Hamlet seem even that much more unreal. He already wished that all of the recent events he had to deal with were not real. He then has to deal with the reality of this ghost. It seems to influence him terribly and takes a negative toll on his emotions. This occurrence continues to further diversify Hamlet’s feelings and emotions (Snider, 67).
Though Shakespeare cannot claim the invention of the ghosts in tragedies, still he can claim to have clothed his ghost in Hamlet with convincingness. This essay concerns his one supernatural character in the tragedy.
This story begins on a cold night in Denmark Elsinore Castle when Hamlet’s trusted friend Horatio, and some guards see a ghost, the ghost of King Hamlet to be exact. The philosophical and complicated yet socially popular young Prince of Denmark, Hamlet, is busy fuming at his uncle Claudius who married his mom two days after his father's death. Hamlet suspects that they conspired to kill his father, and he even contemplates suicide. His hopes are lifted when he hears about the ghost.