William Shakespeare 's Hamlet - Foil Characters

Character foils are important to any story or play as they compare and contrast character traits as the story unfolds. The use of character foils allows the audience to understand a characters way of thought and the actions that they take. Character foils show the moral behaviour and can help the audience see contradictory factors that help advance the plot. Although characters may seem similar, the use of character foils can show their differences. In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the use of character foils proves Fortinbras is a stronger political leader over Hamlet, the contrasting view of Laertes as a son in comparison to Hamlet and Horatio being thought of as the better man in contradiction to Hamlet.

A foil is a minor character in a literary work that compliments the main character through similarities and differences in personality and plot. In William Shakespeare's play "Hamlet", the main character, Hamlet, has three major foils. These foils are his close friend Horatio, Fortinbras, Prince of Norway, and the brother of his love, Laertes. These three characters contradict and enhance Hamlet's major characteristics.

Throughout the play, Hamlet’s character is characterized both by periods of extreme caution and moments of impulsivity. One of the best examples of Hamlet’s heed can be found in Act 2, Scene 2 where he decides to have his theatre troupe perform his play, The Mousetrap. With this, Hamlet hopes that he will be able to “catch the conscience of the King,” by monitoring Claudius during the performance, that heavily mimics his murder of his brother, for signs of stress and guilt. While Hamlet was fully capable of bypassing this step by simply adhering to what he believes is the ghost of his father, Hamlet’s decision to unearth some sort of evidence that supports his father’s accusations is just one example of his cautious ways and need for certainty before action. However, such displays of caution find themselves juxtaposed with Hamlet’s bouts of impulsivity. One of the most telling illustrations of Hamlet’s rashness can be found in Act One, Scene Five, where he first conversing with the ghost of his father. Here, when the Ghost asks Hamlet to “revenge his foul and most unnatural murder,” Hamlet immediately agrees. In fact, within the next few lines Hamlet pledges he will “sweep to my revenge” with “wings as swift as meditation or the thoughts of love”. The fact that Hamlet coins this commitment to avenge his father’s murder without making much of any consideration of the possible repercussions of such an undertaking is one of the best representations of Hamlet’s impulsivity. This rash action, marked by a lack of extended over-analysis and internal debate, contrasts with the excessive caution Hamlet exhibits at many other points throughout the play. Ultimately, the interplay between Hamlet’s caution and impulsivity is one of the most notable juxtapositions of the play and serves to strongly steer the development, not only of

In Hamlet, Shakespeare uses foils to enhance the characters namely to enhance Hamlet. A foil is a minor character who with their similarities and differences reveals character traits, that of another character opposite to them. The character may also be put in place by the author to give the main character a person to talk to, through this conversation useful information can be received about either the main character or the plot in general. This can be shown through Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, also the Ghost of King Hamlet, Ophelia, and Laertes.

The beginning of the play sets the stage for everything to unfold. Hamlet is weak in the mind due to his father’s unnatural death. In Act 1, Hamlet speaks to the Ghost and learns how his father died. Without Hamlet interaction with the Ghost, he would not have created a desire for revenging his father’s death. Now knowing that Claudius killed his father in order to take his place as king, it only makes sense that Hamlet desires the truth to be revealed as to what happened to his father.

A foil is a minor character that helps the audience better understand a major character. A foil may exist as a comparison character, with similarities between the two, as well as differences that bring to light an important contrast between the foil and the main character. A foil may also just be someone for the main character to talk to, so we can know and understand their thoughts and feelings. Foils help us understand the obvious as well as the arcane. In the classic tragedy Hamlet, we see William Shakespeare employ foils to illustrate both examples. They become important literary tools that help the reader rationalize the concurrent theme of the play -

The ghost already has an idea in his own mind about his revenge when he says, "But howsomever thou pursues this act, / taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive / against thy mother aught" (1.5.91-93). Hamlet hides his desire for revenge by saying, "There's never a villain Dwelling in all Denmark but he's an arrant knave" (1.5.137-138). When Hamlet finds out that his friends had heard the whole conversation between the ghost and himself, he makes them swear not to say a thing, and intentionally pretends to be crazy. Hamlet's madness also allows him to avoid truth in his pursuit of revenge. Although Hamlet overtly wants to know the truth, his behavior is quite contradicting. By avoiding a confrontation with Claudius and accusing him directly of wrongdoing, Hamlet also avoids the possibility of truly knowing what happened.                                              

William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Hamlet relays Hamlet’s quest to avenge the murder of his father, the king of Denmark. The late King Hamlet was murdered by his brother, Claudius, who took the throne and Hamlet’s mother Gertrude for himself. Hamlet is beseeched by the ghost of his father to take vengeance upon Claudius; while he swears to do so, the prince inexplicably delays killing Claudius for months on end. Hamlet’s feeble attempt to first confirm his uncle’s guilt with a play that recounts the murder and his botched excuses for not killing Claudius when the opportunity arises serve as testimony to Hamlet’s true self. Hamlet is riddled with doubt towards the validity of the ghost and his own ability to carry out the act necessary to

Similar to the quest for truth in Oedipus’ case, so does Hamlet lead to his own decease. In the first act of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, after Hamlet is aware of the tormented ghost of his father walking on the ramparts, he goes to witness it for himself. This immediately exemplifies the theory that Hamlet, like Oedipus, is in search of the truth, until he realizes it is too much to bear. Subsequent to seeing the apparition, he is convinced to avenge his father’s murderer. The ghost tells him, “Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder,” (29). As Hamlet lays the trap for the new King Claudius, he is procrastinating in order to solve his self-doubt. Even after the ghost tells Hamlet how his father was murdered, Hamlet has the players act

When Hamlet's father appeared to him in the form of a ghost claiming the current king, Claudius, Hamlets uncle, had murdered him; Hamlet did not heed the information and obtain his revenge right away. Hamlet's reaction was that of a wise methodical individual. It took Hamlet some time to convince himself that the ghost truly was a good spirit of his father, relaying truthful words in order that his soul may rest in peace, and even then Hamlet still wanted more proof. Only until Hamlet was certain and had confirmation of Claudius's guilt was he ready to take action. The reader sees how Hamlet finds his final convincing piece of verification through a conversation Hamlet has with his good friend Horatio:

In the Shakespearean drama Hamlet, the entire story is driven by the pivotal first act in which the Prince encounters the ghost of his father, who was murdered by the newly appointed King Claudius. King Hamlet instructs his son to get revenge on his relative, but he does not follow through, resulting in many missed opportunities. In the hypothetical situation in which Hamlet did not come in contact with the apparition, he still would not have exacted revenge on Claudius. There is no reason he would chose to get his vengeance if he refused to do so even with his father’s prodding. In addition, although he may still use the players to determine the identity of the murderer, Hamlet would not act choose to act on what he has learned and would die

In this soliloquy Hamlet cursing himself because an actor is able to find more passion in something that is fictional than he can muster with the motive he has. He then creates an elaborate plan to write a short play which will resemble the circumstances around his father’s death to make sure the Ghost is who it says it is. It seems to me though that Hamlet is only prolonging his mission by checking to see if the ghost is truly who it claims to be. After his talk with the Ghost, he had walked away with only his only objective in mind being revenge. So why didn’t he just poison the king that day and have revenged his father’s spirit? It seems that Hamlet is hesitant to take action not just because he wants to check the validity of the Ghost’s story, but also because he is fearful to live without

In this play, Hamlet is constantly beside himself wondering what is real and what is fake. He thinks he sees his father in the form of a ghost which makes him wonder, “Are ghosts actually real?” “Is this ghost who it actually says it is?” The actions that we expect from Hamlet in the play, are postponed at times to show us that he is trying to get the information himself about what he is trying to do in terms of what to believe. This is what separates the play, Hamlet, from all of the other plays about revenge out there. The ghost in this play also raises questions for the audience about how the ghost actually knew about its own death (Hamlet: Themes, motifs, and symbols par. 1). This play is not mostly about avenging Hamlet’s father’s death, it is about how Hamlet deals with the issues he is dealing with internally (Theme of Revenge par. 1). The fact that his father comes to see him and that he can actually talk to him, doesn’t help Hamlet’s case any by

Hamlet is a interesting character who is recently mourning the death of his father, while his mother has just recently remarried to his uncle. So in his grieving mind when he hears news that some guards seeing a ghost of his father he curiously investigates with them, but the site of his father makes him emotional so he makes a rash decision and chases after the ghost alone. This unbeknownst to him is the first chain reaction of the chaos later in the play. The ghost tells him he was murdered by none other than his uncle. So he then after calming down starts reasonably thinking that the ghost could have been an evil spirit so he sets up a test to prevent him from blindly killing an innocent man. He sets up a play that mimic’s the murder of a powerful monarch in a way similar to his

On the other hand, Hamlet do not really care about what the others are thinking about him, he is interesting on finding out who kills his father, he just thinks about it over and over. Apparently, Hamlet’s desire became real when the Ghost appeared to him, the ghost went directly to talk to him and revealed that it was the spirit of his father. His dead father spoke to him and he mentioned two important words who were revenge and murder. The ghost confesses to hamlet how he feels about revenge by telling him who killed him. The ghost says