Shakespeare’s Use of Comic Element in Establishing Hamlet’s Transition
Hamlet by William Shakespeare is a play that presents the tragic story of Hamlet, prince of Denmark, who is wounded by both his father’s death and the rushed remarriage of his mother to Claudius, his uncle. Hamlet’s father’s ghost reveals that Claudius murdered him and that he wants Hamlet to avenge his death. Shortly after Hamlet finds out that his uncle has murdered his father, he puts on an antic disposition and pretends to be mad. Hamlet mistakenly kills Ophelia’s father instead of Claudius. However, in the end, Hamlet manages to kill Claudius but his mother also gets poisoned. Ophelia is the girl who Hamlet is in love with, and after her father’s death and rejection
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This scene also readies the audience for the following tragic events that are about to happen. It gives the audience a break from all the drama that has been going on, but also delivers important messages in a more relaxed environment. It seems like Horatio is the only person who Hamlet is comfortable with. When Hamlet is with Horatio, his witty personality is shown, and this is evident in this scene as the comic situation helps him show his authentic self. The gravediggers effectively represent the humorous character in the play; the clever one is better compared to his other friend via his wits. It is very interesting how the comic element is used to discuss death and mortality in a different way. The humor serves to enlighten Ophelia 's death tragic stress. The scene will make the audience laugh, as they will enjoy the relief of the tension that was normal throughout the play …show more content…
figurative takes on word’s meanings is what brings that comic sense to the audience again. After the repartee between Hamlet and the gravedigger, Hamlet thinks that the gravedigger is very literal, "How absolute the Knave is!" (5.1.140). This shows better when Hamlet uses the word “ground” and asks the gravedigger how long it will take to bury a man until they rot. At this point, Hamlet means the literal meaning of the word but the gravedigger responds spiritually. The gravedigger responds that the decaying time relies on if the individual was rotten in the earth even before death. He responds to Hamlet’s question, “Faith, if he be not rotten before he die—as we have many pocky corses nowadays that will scarce hold the laying in— he will last you some eight year or nine year. A tanner will last you nine year.” (5.1.143-146) This back and forth conversation about death and mortality between Hamlet and the gravedigger is another way that Shakespeare bring in the humor and mixes it up with some serious
There are many topics deeply hidden in the works of William Shakespeare. One of his greatest pieces of works is the story of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Not only are the words of Shakespeare meaningful, but there are also many follow up pieces of literature that contain important interpretations of the events in this play. These works about Hamlet are extremely beneficial to the reader. I have found four of these works and will use them as sources throughout this essay. The first source is “The Case of Hamlet’s Conscience,” by Catherine Belsey, and it focuses on the topic of Hamlet’s revenge in the play. The second source is “’Never Doubt I Love’: Misreading Hamlet,” by Imtiaz Habib, and it explains a lot of information about Hamlet’s “love” for Ophelia. The third source is “Shakespeare’s Hamlet, III.i.56—88,” by Horst Breuer, and it talks in depth about the issue of suicide in Hamlet. The fourth and final source is “Shakespeare’s Hamlet 1.2.35-38,” by Kathryn Walls, and it describes the significance of the role the Ghost plays throughout Hamlet. There are many different confusing parts in Hamlet and the best way to fully understand the play is to understand all of these parts. By understanding every miniscule detail in the play, it creates a different outlook on the play for the reader. In this essay, I will explain these confusing topics, as well as explain why the sources are helpful and what insight they can bring. At the end is this essay, the reader will have a complete understanding and appreciation of the play Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.
William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet is the dramatic story of a son who felt betrayed by both his mother, and the woman that he loved. Written in the Elizabethan era, around 1600, “Shakespeare's focus on Hamlet's intellectual conflicts was a significant departure from contemporary revenge tragedies… which tended to dramatize violent acts graphically on stage” (Hamlet). The play depicts Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, who it visited by the ghost of his father, King Hamlet. The ghost reveals how he was murdered by his brother Claudius, who then claimed the title of King, and married Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude. Hamlet vows to avenge his father’s untimely death. Hamlet is in love with Ophelia, but her brother, Laertes, and father, Polonius, warn her that Hamlet can never really love her. Ophelia, following her father’s wishes, is unwittingly enlisted to spy on Hamlet, which leaves him feeling betrayed. Hamlet rejects Ophelia, accidently stabs and kills Polonius, and then hides the body. Ophelia becomes so distraught over her father’s death, that she ultimately drowns herself. Hamlet is devastated when he learns of Ophelia’s death. The play culminates with a sword fight between Hamlet and Laertes. Hamlet’s mother dies from inadvertently drinking poisoned wine that was intended to kill Hamlet. Laertes and Hamlet are both stabbed with a poison-tipped sword, but before dying, Laertes confesses that Claudius was the mastermind behind everything. Hamlet forces Claudius to also drink the wine and the irony is that everyone dies in the end. One of the most controversial topics in history is the relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia. Hamlet’s letters express his sincere feelings, and reveal that he was very much in love with Ophe...
This encounter is essential to the plot, in that it provides for Hamlet's return from England and sets the stage for Hamlet's discovery of Ophelia's death. It brings Hamlet from the state in which he was able to easily arrange for the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to one in which he can feel deep sorrow at the loss of Ophelia. It further grants him a better perspective on the nature of death and on his own fate. Its sharp focus on death further serves to prepare the audience for the conclusion of the play. Up to this point, Hamlet has been an active agent in trying to fulfill his destiny as prescribed by his father's ghost. His actions were disorganized and his goal continually foiled. For example, his attempt to control the situation renders him incapable of killing Claudius when he is at prayer, since Hamlet wishes to manipulate the circumstances of Claudius' death so that he is "about some act that has no relish in't" (III, iv, 91-2). The lesson of the graveyard is that death is inevitable, not contrived. Having learned this lesson, Hamlet is a more passive agent of his own fate and the plot resolves itself. The ...
In The Tragedy of Hamlet, Shakespeare developed the story of prince Hamlet, and the murder of his father by the king's brother, Claudius. Hamlet reacted to this event with an internal battle that harmed everyone around him. Ophelia was the character most greatly impacted by Hamlet's feigned and real madness - she first lost her father, her sanity, and then her life. Ophelia, obedient, weak-willed, and no feminist role model, deserves the most pity of any character in the play.
Also in act V, Hamlet and Horatio watch two clowns while they dig a grave. While the clowns dig, they come across a skull. Hamlet pronounces, “This might be the pate of a politician, which this ass now o’er reaches; one that would circumvent God, might it not?” (V.I.66-67). This skull resembled Hamlet’s jester who has passed away over 20 years ago. The skull represented the dead smell in Denmark. This is a turning point in the drama. Everything around Hamlet was falling; first his father, the incest of marriage, and his fair Ophelia.
The first glimpse of death is the reappearance of King Hamlet in the spirit form of a ghost signifying as well as reinforcing the suspicion clouding the demeanor of his death. Upon appearing at the platform of Elsinore castle an amazed Horatio describes “Together with that fair and warlike form/ In which the majesty of buried Denmark did sometimes march” (I.i. 45-48) .The battle attire adorned by the king foreshadows the conflict and bloodshed that will ensue later on in the play. Another portent of death is when Marcellus one of the guard remarks “something is rotten in the state of Denmark” (I.iv.90). In saying this the heavy use of imagery while describing death is brought forth in wh...
Troubled by royal treason, ruthless scheming, and a ghost, Denmark is on the verge of destruction. Directly following King Hamlet's death, the widowed Queen Gertrude remarried Claudius, the King's brother. Prince Hamlet sees the union of his mother and uncle as a "hasty and incestuous" act (Charles Boyce, 232). He then finds out that Claudius is responsible for his father's treacherous murder. His father's ghost asks Hamlet to avenge his death and Hamlet agrees. He plans very carefully, making sure that he doesn't kill Claudius when in he has already been forgiven for his sins. Hamlet accidentally kills Polonius, the King's advisor, thinking that it was Claudius hiding behind a curtain spying on Hamlet and his mother. This drives Ophelia, Polonius' daughter and Hamlet's love interest, insane. She then drowns in a suspected suicide when she falls from a tree into a river. Laertes, Ophelia's brother, teams up with Claudius and plot revenge on the strained prince.
Hamlet, a young prince preparing to become King of Denmark, cannot understand or cope with the catastrophes in his life. After his father dies, Hamlet is filled with confusion. However, when his father's ghost appears, the ghost explains that his brother, Hamlet's Uncle Claudius, murdered him. In awe of the supposed truth, Hamlet decides he must seek revenge and kill his uncle. This becomes his goal and sole purpose in life. However, it is more awkward for Hamlet because his uncle has now become his stepfather. He is in shock by his mother's hurried remarriage and is very confused and hurt by these circumstances. Along with these familial dysfunctions, Hamlet's love life is diminishing. It is an "emotional overload" for Hamlet (Fallon 40). The encounter with the ghost also understandably causes Hamlet great distress. From then on, his behavior is extremely out of context (Fallon 39). In Hamlet's first scene of the play, he does not like his mother's remarriage and even mentions his loss of interest in l...
Hamlet is a play written by William Shakespeare in 1601. The play follows a young prince named Hamlet. Who returns home from school and discovers that his father has died, his uncle has married his mother, and ends up meeting the ghost of his father. The play has been a success since its release, having been performed in a run since its first production. Hamlet’s main enemy in this play is shown as the Uncle, who Hamlet learns from his father’s ghost early on killed his father. Hamlet’s worst enemy according to some scholars, is himself. Hamlet seems to do nothing but get stuck in his head for almost the entire play until he’s finally faced with his own mortality and therefore must act or defy his father’s wishes. When Hamlet
Hamlet shows much anger and disrespect to the women in his life. Ophelia’s believing her father’s words breaks Hamlets heart, being the reason for his treatment towards not just her but his mother. Ophelia
Hamlet by William Shakespeare focuses on the title character plotting vengeance against Claudius for his father's murder to capture the Danish crown. The new king is also Hamlet's uncle and now stepdad due to the marriage with his mother, Gertrude. Through a sequence of events, the protagonist eventually avenges his father, although both his mother and himself fall to a tragic fate as well. Throughout the course of the play, the relationship between Hamlet and Gertrude changes from strained to a disrespectful and mistrustful to a bittersweet ending.
Hamlet is Shakespeare’s most famous work of tragedy. Throughout the play the title character, Hamlet, tends to seek revenge for his father’s death. Shakespeare achieved his work in Hamlet through his brilliant depiction of the hero’s struggle with two opposing forces that hunt Hamlet throughout the play: moral integrity and the need to avenge his father’s murder. When Hamlet sets his mind to revenge his fathers’ death, he is faced with many challenges that delay him from committing murder to his uncle Claudius, who killed Hamlets’ father, the former king. During this delay, he harms others with his actions by acting irrationally, threatening Gertrude, his mother, and by killing Polonius which led into the madness and death of Ophelia. Hamlet ends up deceiving everyone around him, and also himself, by putting on a mask of insanity. In spite of the fact that Hamlet attempts to act morally in order to kill his uncle, he delays his revenge of his fathers’ death, harming others by his irritating actions. Despite Hamlets’ decisive character, he comes to a point where he realizes his tragic limits.
Death threads its way through the entirety of Hamlet, from the opening scene’s confrontation with a dead man’s ghost to the blood bath of the final scene, which occurs as a result of the disruption of the natural order of Denmark. Hamlet is a man with suicidal tendencies which goes against his Christian beliefs as he is focused on the past rather than the future, which causes him to fall into the trap of inaction on his path of revenge. Hamlet’s moral dilemma stems from the ghost’s appearance as “a spirit of health or a goblin damned”, making Hamlet decide whether it brings with...
Hamlet soul becomes corrupt since the beginning with the sudden marriage of his mother to his uncle, the man who killed his father. His depression is much deeper then what everyone believed. Hamlet tries to explain it to his mother and Claudius that his grief is deeper and is much more then the appearance of someone who mourns. His mother seems cold rather then understanding she tells him to get rid of the black clothes and move on, “Thou kno’st’tis common. All that lives must die passing through nature to eternity.” (1.2.74-75) Claudius too is insensitive and says he over doing it and advises him to stop his “un manly grief.” (1.2.98) This lead to the physical and mental corruption Hamlet faces. He contemplates suicide. Suicides along with murder are against Hamlets religious beliefs and are the wor...
Keys to Interpretation of Hamlet & nbsp; William Shakespeare's Hamlet is, at heart, a play about suicide. Though it is surrounded by a fairly standard revenge plot, the play's core is an intense psychodrama about a prince gone mad from the pressures of his station and his unrequited love for Ophelia. He longs for the ultimate release of killing himself - but why? In this respect, Hamlet is equivocal - he gives several different motives depending on the situation. But we learn to trust his soliloquies - his thoughts - more than his actions.