Creative Viewing and Perception in Shakespeare's Hamlet

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Creative Viewing and Perception in Shakespeare's Hamlet

William S. Burroughs once said, "Nothing exists until or unless it is observed. An artist is making something exist by observing it. And his hope for other people is that they will also make it exist by observing it. I call it 'creative observation. Creative viewing.' This quote lends a great ideal, an ideal that inhabits the essence of this paper. Perception is just how you see something! Perception is an individual process in which you take a look at an object or a situation and based on your level of being, culture, and/or education you do what is called "creative viewing." Something that is trash to one man, is art to another. Something that is ugly to most may be the most beautiful object in someone else's eyes. Human nature entails passing judgment or perceiving things quickly, it is an instinct, but another part of human nature allows a negative or a positive reaction to it. Being very educated on his situation and his power in his life young Hamlet has quite a big chunk to take in all at once. Popov too has a brute that changes her was of life, and she quicker than Hamlet must make life decisions. They both had much to perceive, and they did it very creatively.

The first pattern between the two characters is the loneliness they are faced with. Mrs. Popov is a widow who was the textbook perfect wife. Her husband gone only a short while, she discovered love letters from the other women that her husband was sleeping with. Mr. Popov left her alone for weeks while wooing other women and squandering away her money. While sweet innocent Mrs. Popov, a very beautiful lady, waited in trust. Even after her husband's death she remains faithful to prove that she is the most faithful and she will see no one and buries herself in her house and waits for her death. Hamlet is in the same situation, only twisted slightly. His father was killed and a very short time later his dear mother married the murderer. He is the only one that knows for sure, because the ghost of his father told him. In his return home from school he is given an opportunity to make justice of the murder but in this great deed he questions his own existence and to what extreme must he go to stay faithful to his father.

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