William Shakespeare 's Hamlet - The Moral Corruption Essay

“To be or not to be: That is the question” (Hamlet, Act 3 Scene 1). The quote written by Shakespeare is one of the most known quotes in the world. From great scholars who have spent years studying works of Hamlet to the young adults who have never read a piece of Shakespearean literature. Almost everyone has heard or said this saying, but do they know what it means? The answer to that is not really. That saying is part of a great soliloquy, and people have been discussing what it truly means since Shakespeare has written it. Many will say it is about suicide, while others may argue that it is about taking charge. All that is known is that Shakespeare was an intelligent man, who was very hard to understand. However, throughout his stories

"This above all, to thine own self be true." Hamlet shows that integrity is the most important personal quality to have in a world in which people are often not what they seem." Discuss.

Texts reflect their context and paradigms but transcendental texts that explore aspects of humanity can resonate through time and remain relevant and accessible to audiences. William Shakespeare’s introspective play, Hamlet, explores the complexity of the human condition by reflecting ideologies such as justice, loyalty and morality. Although these deeply human ideas ensure the plays resonance, they are somewhat secondary to the depths of Hamlet’s human struggle. These thematic concerns reflect how flaws in the values of society descend into corruption. Through an exploration of the characterization, Shakespeare invites a re-evaluation of the values that shape human nature. The textual integrity of Hamlet makes it of distinctive

Shakespeare uses repetition throughout the play to emphasize this relatable character flaw. Hamlet constantly speaks of what he will do, and then later fails to follow through with it. “O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, / Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!” this synecdoche is another representation of Hamlet’s flaw. He wishes to kill himself, but overthinks it and is unable to act. By giving Hamlet a relatable flaw and then using repetition to emphasize it, Shakespeare gives us a means of empathizing with the Prince. It can be easy to judge a person harshly for committing an iniquitous act. In Hamlet, the playwright stresses the difficulty of Hamlets situation and how he is almost forced to commit murder. “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” is a metaphor for the royal family governing Denmark. It communicates that rottenness of the royal family will permeate and destroy everything, like rot would in a fruit. Accentuating Hamlet’s dire

Imagery is an integral part of literature. The protagonist, Hamlet, his mother Queen Gertrude and her husband King Claudius, along with Hamlet’s love interest Ophelia are all affected by human sin through the evocation of sickness and rot. Sin, the driving force of the play, impacts each character, decaying his or her mind, resulting in the emotional and physical demise of each character and the decay of the state of Denmark, which has become “rotten” after Claudius poisons his own brother and weds his sister-in-law. William Shakespeare’s tragic play Hamlet has explicit imagery evoking sickness, death, and decay. The use of death, rot, and sickness as images illustrate the sinful human nature of the characters and the corruption of Denmark.

Just as a disease starts with a single infection, the evil deeds in Hamlet start from a single seed, and from this seed, “things rank and gross in nature” grow. Shakespeare uses the motif of disease and rot to illustrate this. It starts with a single immoral act,

Throughout the tragedy of Hamlet, the recurring images of such serve as not only a representation of Hamlet’s character and his strong desire to die, but also a metaphor as an illustration on the current unstable political state of Denmark. The imagery of decomposition is shown during Hamlet’s interaction with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, when he explains that Denmark “appeareth nothing me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors ” (2.2.306-307) which suggests his perception of everything Denmark as a whole under Claudius’ rule is a decaying state, riddled with diseased and rotten individuals. In addition, the idea of Claudius’ rule is the source of what is “rotten in the state of denmark” (1.4.95) shows the idea of the dynamic and infectious quality of sin (Altick 1). Poison is not only a method of death, but also a presentation of the infection going about in the state of Denmark, where King Hamlet’s death by poisoning extends as the initial infection that on the entire state of Denmark, where he tells hamlet that the “ear of Denmark is by a forged process of my death” (1.5.36-37). Later in the story, Hamlet describing his “wit’s diseased” (3.2.321), the King being bothered by the “hectic in [his] blood” (4.3.64), and Hamlet’s probable return as a “ulcer” (4.7.121).

A lot of moral corruption can be seen in today’s society. We see it in movies, on TV, in books, on social media, and many other things. Moral corruption means doing something, regardless of it being right or wrong, for your own benefit, like stealing, lying, committing adultery, etc. It is a very prominent theme throughout Hamlet. Almost all of the characters perform some kind of moral corruption, whether it be Claudius killing his brother or Hamlet conspiring to kill Claudius.

In Hamlet, Shakespeare incorporates the idea of corruption and disease into almost every scene to emphasize the unscrupulous state of Denmark and Hamlet’s fervid pessimism. Shakespeare uses madness, war, drunkenness, adultery and murder to augment the theme that Denmark is rotting. The word “rot” is of Germanic origin, meaning to “gradually deteriorate through lack of attention or opportunity.” Hamlet himself is a victim of this decay as he rots with a plagued will which renders him unable to avenge his father’s death and extricate his country. Shakespeare constantly reminds the readers of the theme of decay and corruption through the use of imagery.

In Hamlet, imagery of disease, poison and decay, are used by Shakespeare for a purpose. The descriptions of disease, poison, and decay help us understand the bitter relationships that exist in the play and Hamlet’s own cynicism. We see Hamlet’s pessimism in his soliloquy when he contemplates suicide. The resentful relationship that exists between Claudius and Hamlet is heightened with the use of imagery when Claudius asks about Polonius. Imagery enhances Claudius’ abhorrence of Hamlet. Shakespeare uses imagery in this play to deepen our understanding of the emotions experienced.

   In Shakespeare's time, Denmark was a horrible, rotting, poisoned land due to its hidden deceit. In "Hamlet," Shakespeare makes many references to this as a means of clarifying relationships in the story. Writers often use imagery to provide detail and development, which help us understand ideas within and the atmosphere of the play. Hamlet, Horatio, and the ghost are the characters who allude to Denmark's state of decay. Shakespeare's frequent references to death and disease are not only evidence of the harsh and dirty living conditions of the time; they are a recurrent theme in all of his works.

In Shakespeare’s famous play, Hamlet, there are multiple motifs of corruption present throughout the work as a way of accentuating the pain and destruction that are the basis of the play. From the beginning of the play, attention is called to the fact that “something is rotten in the state of Denmark” and later Hamlet refers to Claudius as “a mildewed ear” (Act 1, Scene 4, line 91)(Act 3, Scene 4, line 65). These tie together because Claudius is the new representative of all of Denmark. Since Claudius is rotten, the entirety of Denmark has become rotten. Hamlet also talks of much corruption having to do with his mother when he states that she “takes off the rose/From the fair forehead of an innocent love,/And sets a blister there” and that

Human life is guaranteed to be marked by ruin, however, when this corruption consumes several aspects of an individual’s life, the effects can be disastrous. The loss of goodness in life due to evil acts can cause communities and mental health to rapidly degrade. In Hamlet by William Shakespeare, the evil Hamlet faces in several aspects of his life highlights how lust and corruption can consume and destroy what was originally pure. Thought.

Throughout ‘Hamlet’ we have the images of death, decay, rottenness, and corruption embedded in the story. The imagery that Shakespeare uses in hamlet relates directly with the plots of the play perfectly. The corruptions images are illuminated in the beginning with Claudius own actions. The characters use metaphors of disease in the connection to sickness and rottenness. Within “Hamlet”, Shakespeare makes a number of references to Denmark 's tainted state due to the deceitfulness that lies within. Shakespeare uses death and decay to exemplify the death of the characters, and the decay of these characters that comes with those deaths, as well as the decay and death of morals and the death and decay that comes of political corruption of the government of Denmark. Denmark is repeatedly defined as a physical body made ill by the moral corruption of Claudius. They don 't know that Claudius isn 't legitimate throughout the play; characters draw clear links between the moral lawfulness of a ruler and the health of the nation. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern state their beliefs that health of a country is tied to the legitimacy of the King. Because death and decay are so prevalent throughout Hamlet, it could be said that Shakespeare intended for them to be a major theme.

Morality, sin, and afterlife are important pillars of Christianity. Hamlet intertwines together the attitudes of Christians concerning murder to revenge through the tragedy of the play. In Hamlet, written by William Shakespeare, Act III, scene iii, Shakespeare reveals the guilt and Claudius’ ambiguous character through the use of metaphors, similes, allusions, and repetition to convey Claudius’ conflict over asking for God’s mercy.