The Significance of Death and Sex to William Shakespeare
In this essay, I will consider Death and Sin in Shakespearean drama and I would like to look at three of Shakespeare's tragic plays: "Hamlet", "Othello" and "King Lear".
Shakespeare uses many themes in all his play that attract audiences throughout history. The things he wrote about are as relevant now as they were in his time. Death and Sin were issues that are always around. In his plays, Shakespeare could comment on these things and make audiences see things that they could not before.
In Hamlet, we can see clear examples of Death and Sin as significant to Shakespearean drama.
The first thing that points to both death and sin is the inclusion of a ghost in the play. The presence of a ghost became a conventional element to revenge tragedy, wherein the ghost would reveal why it was in purgatory and therefore haunting whomever it was haunting. The haunting was usually of someone in the same family who would then feel forced into revenging the ghosts death, such as Hamlet was haunted by his father and subsequently killed Claudius, the murderer.
Death in the form of a ghost was popular to revenge tragedy and was easily recognised by an audience. Shakespeare was aware of what his audience were looking for in a play and what would hold their interest and the supernatural seemed to hold great importance and interest in Elizabethan times. A recognised signal of something unnatural, the introduction of the ghost so early on in the play signifies straight away that something bad has happened and that a sin has been committed.
Hamlet himself describes in Act Once scene one that
" All is not well.
I doubt some foul play."
(Lines 255 --6)
Referring ...
... middle of paper ...
...ed for it.
In "King Lear", the dramatic chain of events resulting in so many sinners' deaths shows that cause and effect really does exist and that the two work together. Shakespeare was clever in the way he wove both elements into his plays. One didn't seem to be able to exist without the other.
I am not sure what audiences expected in Elizabethan times, but I am sure that entertainment was a vital element of expectation. Shakespeare wrote plays that reflected real life situations, such as that of Iagos jealousy, and showed what he believed would happen as his course of action continued. The anticipation of a play depends on its genre: tragedy, historical, comedy and so on. I believe death and sin are expectations for a tragic play, such as the ones I have looked at in this essay and I think that without them, the audience would be disappointed in the play.
Some pieces of literature are said to rely on the use of supernatural events to allow the plot to advance or to provide foreshadowing. An example of this would be one of Shakespeare’s plays, The Tragedy of Macbeth. Shakespeare applies many magical events, because it gives the play some more depth and to extract out the reader’s emotions. However, in The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, a play also written by Shakespeare, while it does have a few moments, its uses are only intended for indicating how the amount of tragedy sums up and how affecting it is. Shakespeare is not only known for adding in unnatural events, but he also uses his own unique style of writing to express the story through his own views. Throughout the play, The Tragedy of Julius
the mindset of those in the play. Shakespeare uses supernatural actions to keep the reader
Redemption is the act of being saved by from sin, error, or evil. Redemption is a major theme in all writings, short-stories, novels, poems, plays, etc. Many people in their lives look to achieve redemption by the time they kick the bucket, however sometimes redemption is achieved with death. In Christianity I am reminded of the significance of the death of Christ on the cross to relate to the theme of redemption in death. In this paper I hope to accomplish a contrast of the novel A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines and the play of Hamlet by William Shakespeare, by using the theme of redemption in death, and also ultimately explaining
...lationship with Hamlet, seemingly takes her life without any hesitation attributable to her religion. The corrupt minds and actions of the royal family ultimately resulted in their own self-destruction and destruction of Denmark as a whole. Shakespeare creates this indirect suicide as a way to rid everyone of his or her vulnerabilities. He leaves it to the afterlife to distinguish between the good and the evil (Stockton). For all of them, death decides their fate. They leave behind their titles and their treasure and become equal. Coincidentally the characters are all Christian, all believing that suicide is a sin and though indirectly, it is their actions that lead to their demise, which creates speculation around what may happen to them in the afterlife. Shakespeare uses suicide as a way to explore each character and depict their commitment to their religion.
...n which it was based in the areas of characters, events, and settings. He changes these aspects of the history in order to make a more intriguing story. Making dramatic plays based on historical events is one reason that Shakespeare became the popular poet and playwright that he was during his lifetime.
Even after four hundred years, Shakespeare's plays still continue to resonate with modern audiences. This is because Shakespeare's plays explore universal themes which still remain relevant in today's society. In Macbeth, Shakespeare dramatically explores how one man's excessive ambition and greed for power led him to tyranny and absolute destruction. The ideas explored in Macbeth still remain relevant in the contemporary world where individuals can get tempted by wealth and power and forget all sense of moral direction.
Shakespeare has been around for centuries and will continue to be around for many more centuries to come. With the current day and age, Shakespeare is still relevant in today’s time. It is especially more relevant to young adults in this age of time. Shakespeare’s plays are a classic that can be interpreted in many ways. The human nature and human behavior has not changed, but only the motivating factors and conditions through time.
The play Othello, written by William Shakespeare, is a tragic play that goes over a variety of topics, from love to death. Othello is a tragic play due to its many aspects of death throughout it. One character that falls to the hands of death is one of the main characters, Othello, and another being his wife Desdemona. Each of these deaths are a direct cause of another character’s actions, Iago. Within the play there are scenes of manipulation, betrayal, jealousy, lust, deceit, and murder. This play, Othello, contains many characters that have important roles to the development of the play and the plots that occur. These characters are the ones that make the play what it is and create the various moods and themes throughout the play. The characters
Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a tragic play about murder, betrayal, revenge, madness, and moral corruption. It touches upon philosophical ideas such as existentialism and relativism. Prince Hamlet frequently questions the meaning of life and the degrading of morals as he agonizes over his father’s murder, his mother’s incestuous infidelity, and what he should or shouldn’t do about it. At first, he is just depressed; still mourning the loss of his father as his mother marries his uncle. After he learns about the treachery of his uncle and the adultery of his mother, his already negative countenance declines further. He struggles with the task of killing Claudius, feeling burdened about having been asked to find a solution to a situation that was forced upon him.Death is something he struggles with as an abstract idea and as relative to himself. He is able to reconcile with the idea of death and reality eventually.
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...
Tragic death plays a really big role in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Hamlet often considers death in many different perspectives, and definitely obsesses with the idea more so after his fathers’ death. Hamlet’s soliloquy is one of the most famous in literature, “To be or not to be, that is the question…” Hamlet’s dilemma is the pain of life that he must endure or the uncertainty of death. From the beginning of the play to the very last scene, the fascination between life and death plays a role throughout. Hamlet is troubled through the play after realizing that his uncle was the one who murdered his father and is now married to his mother. He wants to avenge Hamlet Sr. death and kill Claudius but feels that killing himself would be an easier resolution. After the death of his murdered father and appearance at his funeral, Hamlet will not leave anywhere without making the statement of his all black attire on the inside and out. The turn of events throughout the play only help the reader understand the debt of each character and their specific role to Hamlet and to the story in regards to life and death.
The story, Romeo and Juliet carried a constant theme of love and death. William Shakespeare wrote this play with several different ideas in mind. He tried to have a romance story that still incorporated violence as well as comedy making a play that all classes of people would enjoy. He succeeded by making one of the most famous plays of all time.
Many have wondered why Hamlet, a work from around 400 years ago is relevant in modern society. One would think a piece of work written at the time based on a true story would eventually die out as it became irrelevant. That isn't the case of Hamlet and other works by Shakespeare simply because of how Shakespeare is able to wonderfully address the human condition and the fact that the human condition simply does not change within 400 years. As said by Craven a professor at UTSA, “Humans still experience love, loss, betrayal, war, humor and tragedy, which gives Shakespeare a foothold in modern times,”Due to this, Hamlet is still relevant today because its major themes such as love, betrayal, and tragedy are major forces that we as a species still have to deal with. These themes heavily resonates with us and can be seen in popular contemporary works that exist today such as Game of Thrones, The Hunger Games and the Twilight Series which shows us how Hamlet is relevant today because of its portrayal of human traits.
The outbreak of the plague during Shakespeare's life reflected in his writing, resulting in a far more massive number of tragedies than comedies. The tragic deaths of his main characters are speculated to have been reference to important people in his life dying unexpectedly. There were time periods in which the plague ...
"Othello By William Shakespeare Critical Essays Shakespeare's Tragedy."Shakespeare's Tragedy. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 May 2014. .