Essay about The Profound Irony of Shakespeare's Hamlet

William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is a tragic story about two lovers who are from two disputing families, and their eventual suicides. Shakespeare uses dramatic irony throughout the play to create tension for the audience and foreshadow the ending. Dramatic irony is when the words or actions of characters in a story have a different meaning to the reader than to the characters. This is because the reader knows something that the characters do not. Romeo and Juliet’s death could have been prevented if the characters in the story weren’t so ignorant of their situations, and often times the reader recognizes this.

Complete desolation, agony and laughter are only some of the emotions brought to the reader’s attention whilst reading William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Born in 1564, the world’s most famous playwright has written many renowned pieces of theatre, with Hamlet arguably being the most celebrated. The drama follows the sufferings of a young prince by the name of Hamlet. His father, the king, has just died, and his uncle, Claudius, has taken the throne and married Hamlet’s mother and father’s widow, Gertrude, just a few days after the funeral of the previous king. Hamlet detests Claudius and describes him as a goat-man, not even a human. By examining several passages from throughout the play, one can conclude that Claudius’ character clarifies Hamlet’s

     Shakespeare presents Claudius as a character with many faces yet the audience can clearly understand his motives and ambition throughout the play. His character does however change and we clearly see how his evilness and weakness increases as his need to escape discovery and his clandestine nature in doing so, is revealed.

Through acts 1 and 2, the audience sees virtually no personality in King Claudius.  Only in act 3, scene 1, are we shown that maybe the King has something on his mind when he responds to a conversation between Polonius and Ophelia.  Polonius tells his daughter that it is okay to pretend and the King responds in an aside saying, "How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!" (49).  I feel as though Shakespeare is working up the audience's suspicion of the King for when he is confronted by the performance of the players.

In Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, various characters manipulate others in order to gain power and fulfill their personal desires. The character who portrays the most immense manipulation is King Claudius, the brother of the late King Hamlet. Thus far, Claudius advertises himself as a sensible, honorable man who lives to serve the greater good, yet his manipulation exposes his dubious intentions, leaving him with an unfortunate fate.

In the play Hamlet, Claudius is known as the villain of the play. He is the lead antagonist who is characterized as a cunning, incestuous, and vile, usurper. Many readers and critics of the play do not dispute this perception, especially after reading how Claudius became the King of Denmark; He steals the throne by poisoning his brother, the previous king, and quickly marrying Queen Gertrude his widowed sister in law (1.5.42, 60-74). The general reading of Claudius’s character paints him to be a corrupt, cowardly politician, in addition to being Hamlet’s (the protagonist) foe. This portrait engages first-time readers to judge Claudius immediately and although this perspective of his personality is proven to be true, it is limited. Claudius

In the play Othello, Shakespeare uses many literary devices to help the reader understand the theme of the story. One of those many literary devices used in the play, is the wide range of irony. Throughout the pages of the book the reader will see the use of dramatic, situational, and verbal irony. Shakespeare does not use irony in an understated way, it is very direct, and can be found on almost every page of the book. The use of irony creates suspense, and adds interest as to what will happen.

Claudius is unusual in that he is a two-sided character. He seems throughout Hamlet to be an effective king, dealing with all political and military

• This example of dramatic irony is important because if Hamlet had killed Claudius in this scene, that Hamlet would have achieved hos ultimate goal much more quickly, and the play would have been finished.

The play, Hamlet , by William Shakespeare, is an enticing play which engages in a number of dramatic ironies portrayed in this piece. Dramatic irony is present in a play when the audience has a full understanding of the main character's words and actions, while the other characters in the play are completely unaware of these incidents. In act I and II, it is evident that Hamlet is feigning insanity to deceive characters, like his mother, in the play by diverting attention away from the investigation of his father's death. However, the audience is fully aware of the facade Hamlet is attempting to pull off, in which signifies dramatic irony. By examining this incident through an analysis, interpretation and a personal judgment, it will be evident that this incident develops the conflict and theme of the play.

King Claudius serves as the primary antagonist in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In the play, Claudius is the recently-crowned King of Denmark after murdering his brother King Hamlet and taking the throne. Shortly after King Hamlet’s funeral, Claudius went on to married his brother’s widow. Throughout the play, Claudius’s only concerns are himself and maintaining power. Claudius will stop at nothing to preserve his authority whether it be spying or murdering allies and family members.

     Claudius’ lies are effective enough to persistently deceive to play’s antagonist, Hamlet. Despite Hamlet’s disgust with Claudius for marrying Gertrude, and his view of Claudius as “a king of shreds and patches” (III.iv.104), Hamlet suspicion of Claudius as a murderer is preliminarily nonexistent. The appearance of a spirit claiming to be Hamlet’s dead father first alerts Hamlet to the actions of “that incestuous, that adulterate beast, /With witchcraft of his with, with traitorous gifts” (I.v.42-3). And yet still, Hamlet remains hesitant to believe that Claudius was the murderer, searching for complementary evidence. The play that Hamlet enacts -- designed to “catch the conscience of the king” (II.ii.562) --succeeds in revealing Claudius’ guilt, but does not provoke instant action on Hamlet’s part. So effective is Claudius’ manipulation of the royal circle that he manages to almost permanently stay the revelation of his guilt, and if it weren’t for supernatural intervention against an injustice, he may never have been exposed.

In the book Hamlet by Shakespeare, irony is used numerous times in order to give the reader insight on what is going on. As stated in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, irony is an action that is understood by the audience but not by the characters in the play. If this strategy were not included in this drama, it would take away the whole purpose. This play would consist of no suspense and would be extremely boring to the reader because the characters would know as much as the readers know. This allows for incite to what can happen in the future or what has happened in the past. The irony in this play ultimately revolves around Hamlet and his plan to achieve revenge with Claudius. From the play that Hamlet organizes

     This essay will discuss the issue of irony in Hamlet by dealing with the problems that arise as a result of Hamlet's attempt to avenge his father's death. One of the central problems is the clash between Hamlet's overpowering need to believe in the ghost of his father, who is the authoritative figure in his life, and the awareness that he lacks empirical knowledge of the truth. In trying to achieve this knowledge, Hamlet sets out on a mixed mission of accusation, revenge and the search for truth, finally causing the upset of the original revenge plot when it ricochets off Polonius' dead body and hits Hamlet in the name of Laertes.

Hamlet is one of the play’s I’ve read throughout this course and I’ve gained many insights as to what dramatic irony could be. Moreover, I was able to make connections with American Gangster and Hamlet because the audience had a better idea of what was happening more than the characters. This is because, in American Gangster, Frank Lucas didn’t know that the police, Richard Robert’s, was trying to uncover Frank’s heroin business. Hamlet also includes a dramatic irony when the audience realized it was Hamlet’s uncle that killed the king. Through the Dramatic irony, it established a suspenseful effect that influenced me to continue