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History plays of Shakespeare
Hamlet the character analysis
Hamlet the character analysis
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The theme of death is abundant throughout William Shakespeare play “Hamlet”, and even more evident in Laurence Olivier’s movie Hamlet. At the start of both the play and the movie there two soldiers Bernardo and Marcellus along with Horatio (Hamlets friend) who see a ghostly figure. In the movie this scene is portrayed as very dark, and cold, and is a similar scene throughout the movie. The next person to die is Lord Chamberlin Polonius, who was killed by Hamlet. The deaths continue with Ophelia’s (Hamlets true love) suicide. Then in a remarkable sword fight that lead to Hamlet, Claudius, Gertrude and Laertes all dying from poison. William Shakespeare wrote Hamlet in a time when people were unsure about death, the afterlife and Shakespeare did …show more content…
Hamlet first shows this fear when he contemplates killing Claudius while he prayed. In this scene Claudius had just pretty much admitted to killing Hamlets father with his reaction to the “play within the play” hosted by Hamlet. The King overcome with either guilt or fear heads straight for the altar where a statue of Jesus is at the center of this altar and begins to pray. Hamlet appears behind him ready to strike him dead with his sword, decides not to kill him. Hamlet decided not revenge his father’s death and kill his Uncle because he was praying and Hamlet thought that if he killed him then, his Uncle would go to heaven and Hamlet did not want his murderous Uncle to go to …show more content…
That is the question.” This maybe a famous quote from Hamlet but it was Hamlet’s fear of death and what happens to a person’s soul if you commit suicide. In the Catholic religion, a person who commits suicide does not receive rights or allowed to be buried on holy grounds, and they are not admitted into heaven. You see this in the play at Ophelia’s burial, the priest does not given you rights or certain blessings. This again goes back to the fear the English had, what happens at the time of their death, if there are not rights or blessing how would they get into heaven.
Conclusion
My analysis of Hamlet’s fascination and fear of death has led me to think that William Shakespeare created this play for the people of England. The play was used as a podium that allowed for the concerns of the common English people to be seen and heard. It is not a coincident that Hamlet was written after the Reformation. It is not a coincident that the fears that Hamlet had of death could have been eased with Catholic traditions. Finally it is not a coincident that they all die in the end of the play, because in the end the Catholic traditions died in
From the appearance of the Ghost at the start of the play to its bloody conclusion, Hamlet is pervaded with the notion of death. What better site for a comic interlude than a graveyard? However, this scene is not merely a bit of comic relief. Hamlet's encounter with the gravedigger serves as a forum for Shakespeare to elaborate on the nature of death and as a turning point in Hamlet's character. The structure and changing mood of the encounter serve to move Hamlet and the audience closer to the realization that death is inevitable and universal.
We’re all going to die right? Then why is it that we fear death so much? In William Shakespeare’s well-known tragic play, Hamlet, the reader views Hamlet’s attitude towards death evolve. Shakespeare proves that Hamlet’s attitude towards death develops throughout the play; he starts off desiring death, then is fearful of death, and finally is confident about death.
"’Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, / nor customary suits of solemn black / [ . . . ] but I have that within which passeth show; / these but the trappings and the suits of woe” (Shakespeare 1.2.76-73, 85-86) says Hamlet when confronted about his way of grieving over his father’s recent death. Shakespeare’s play Hamlet is a remarkable tale that is centered on the idea of death and grief. While death is a universal occurrence, meaning every person will deal with it, how we grieve after a loss is completely individual. To look at a formula of grief, most turn to the five stages of grief developed by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, a psychiatrist, who studied the topic in her book On Death and Dying. This model consists of denial, anger, sadness, bargaining, and acceptance, although the duration and order of the stages are different for every person. In Shakespeare’s play Hamlet the stages of grief are evident in his sadness, anger, and finally acceptance.
“So shall you hear of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts, of accidental judgements, casual slaughters, of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause”, (Hamlet, Act V, Scene 2, Lines 381-384). Horatio, best friend of Prince Hamlet, says this in the final lines of the play. He says this after Gertrude, Queen of Denmark, Hamlet, Claudius, King of Denmark, and Laertes, son of Polonius all die in the battle between Hamlet and Laertes. Hamlet, King of Denmark, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, former friends of Hamlet, Polonius, councillor to the King, and Ophelia, daughter of Polonius are also dead. Death is a very important theme in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
People mature and change over their lifetimes. They have their own views of the world that shift as their minds adapt to new stimuli. A person’s character can be seen through the way his or her mind changes when suffering misfortunes and how he or she resolves it. William Shakespeare portrays this concept in his play The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Hamlet undergoes great pain after the death of his father and the hasty remarriage of his mother to his uncle Claudius. Hamlet suffers several misfortunes while in grief and is left to find meaning in his life. But when ghost of Hamlet’s father reveals the nature of his death, Hamlet finds a new purpose: avenging the late King. Over the course of the play, several aspects of Hamlet’s character
In act 3, Hamlet questions the unbearable pain of life and views death through the metaphor of sleep. "To be or not to be: that is the question: / whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer / the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles / and, by opposing end them. To die, to sleep / no more" (3.1.64-68), details which bring up new thoughts about what happens in the after life. Thus, Hamlet contemplates suicide, but his lacking knowledge about what awaits him in the afterworld causes him to question what death will bring. For example he states, "The undiscovered country, from whose bourn / no traveler returns, puzzles the will / and makes us rather bear those ills we have / than fly to others that we know not of" (3.1.87-90), again revealing his growing concern with "Truth" and his need for certainty. Once again, death appears in act 4 with the suicide of Ophelia, the demand for Hamlet's execution and the gravedigger scene. All of these situations tie back with how death is all around Hamlet and feeds his obsession with it. Finally in act 5, Hamlet meets his own death, as his obsession to know leads to the death of himself.
In Hamlet 's mind the idea of dying is not what scares him. It is the uncertainty of what the afterlife is that frightens Hamlet away from the actual act, even though he 's infatuated with how to kill himself and get to the other side. The point in the story that is really a turning point for Hamlet occurs in the graveyard scene (Act V) Before; Hamlet has been horrified and shocked. When he sees Yorick 's skull there, which is someone Hamlet loved and
Once Hamlet has learned of his father’s death, he is faced with a difficult question: should he succumb to the social influence of avenging his father’s death? The Ghost tells Hamlet to “revenge his foul and most unnatural murder” (1.5.31) upon which Hamlet swears to “remember” (1.5.118). Hamlet’s immediate response to this command of avenging his father’s death is reluctance. Hamlet displays his reluctance by deciding to test the validity of what the Ghost has told him by setting up a “play something like the murder of (his) father’s” (2.2.624) for Claudius. Hamlet will then “observe his looks” (2.2.625) and “if he do blench” (2.2.626) Hamlet will know that he must avenge his father’s death. In the course of Hamlet avenging his father’s death, he is very hesitant, “thinking too precisely on the event” (4.4.43). “Now might I do it…and he goes to heaven…No” (3.3.77-79) and Hamlet decides to kill Claudius while “he is drunk asleep, or in his rage, or in th’ incestuous pleasure of his bed” (3.3.94-95). As seen here, Hamlet’s contradicting thought that Claudius “goes to heaven” (3.3.79) influences him to change his plans for revenge. Hamlet eventually realizes that he must avenge his father’s death and states “from this time forth my thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth” (4.4.69). From this, Hamlet has succumbed to the social influence and has vowed to avenge his father’s death.
The background behind the play of Hamlet has Christianity throughout every scene. Beginning with Prince Hamlet encountering the ghost of his father, with this encounter comes Hamlets decision to extract revenge by swearing to kill whoever murdered his father, which is later proven to be his uncle Claudius, who is granted rule after King Hamlet’s death. Hamlet is cautious at first with the ghost because of the counteractions he would have on his moral values following the talk. “In the play, it is hamlet’s failure to revenge the murder of his father that drives the plot forward and the deaths of all the major characters all come into play with hamlet’s delay” (Jamieson). Horatio voice’s his opinion after Hamlet’s confession to him of his deceased father who has appeared to him as a ghost and is sworn to secrecy, Horatio implies that it is against the Lord by stating "I'll speak to it but though Hell itself should separate And bid me hold my peace" (Shakespeare). It was known at the time that Christianity forbade followers to communicate with the deceased, contributing to Hamlet’s struggle with his faith.
When reading about Hamlet and his father’s ghost meeting in Act I Scene V, the ghost says, “I am thy father’s spirit, Doom’d for a certain term to walk the night,” (Shakespeare, 14). This signifies death because his father was murdered, is dead, and has now returned as a ghost. Also, in Act IV Scene VII when Ophelia dies, the Queen says, “One woe doth tread upon another’s heel, So fast they follow. Your sister’s drown’d, Laertes,” (Shakespeare, 47). This event in the play entitled death, as Ophelia commits suicide. Death in literature can be very relatable. Readers don’t have to necessarily relate exactly with what happens in each plot, but one thing is for sure, we all will experience death one day. Not to sound morbid, but it is one characteristic of the human condition- morality. Not only this, but murder and suicide are both issues that our society faces today. As we all know, many of our movies and tv shows revolve around murder and suicide, such as the show “Thirteen Reasons Why” or the movie series “Saw.” This aspect of death is present frequently in today’s literature, as well as literature from many years ago, such as this play, Hamlet. As I said, morality is something that we must all face, which is why I think it still is deemed so relevant after all of this time. It creates conflicts and intense situations in which all
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...
After a death, we find ways to overcome grief in this painful world. Some people binge eat their way out while others find the easy way out, which is suicide. In the play Hamlet, Shakespeare portrays mortality in the image of death and suicide. Shakespeare develops Hamlet as a man who is sensitive and uncontrolled by his actions. Hamlet faces challenges that mess with his subconscious, making him feel vulnerable to making decisions that will affect his life.
Shakespeare shows the ideology of death internalizing within Hamlet first with Hamlet’s emotions following the death of Old Hamlet. In the scene in which Hamlet is introduced, Hamlet is portrayed as an embodiment of death, dressed in “suits of a solemn black”(1.2.81) and has “dejected havior of the visage”(1.2.84). Hamlet’s physical representation as death signifies his lack of desire to continue living himself, being detached and discontent with the world around him. Hamlet, in his first soliloquy, opens by stating, “Sullied flesh would melt/Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew,/ Or that the Everlasting had not fixed/His canon ‘gainst Self Slaughter!”(1.2.133-135). This is significant, as it shows Hamlet’s full willingness to commit suicide and end Hamlet’s internal pain, if not for suicide being a sin under religion. The reason for Hamlet’s desire for death and his dis...
He is always worrying that he will be sent to hell for committing a sin. He believes in God and he believes in a heaven. Since Hamlet believes in both heaven and our God, he is not able to commit suicide and depart from this world. He wishes that he could die, but at the same time he knows that he must live. God decides where and when people die and his judgment is supposed to be final. Humans just think that they can end their lives and they 'll be alright with that. But it is God who determines when life is brought in and out of the world. Therefore, this is partly why Hamlet didn’t commit suicide.
Hamlet is one of the most often-performed and studied plays in the English language. The story might have been merely a melodramatic play about murder and revenge, butWilliam Shakespeare imbued his drama with a sensitivity and reflectivity that still fascinates audiences four hundred years after it was first performed. Hamlet is no ordinary young man, raging at the death of his father and the hasty marriage of his mother and his uncle. Hamlet is cursed with an introspective nature; he cannot decide whether to turn his anger outward or in on himself. The audience sees a young man who would be happiest back at his university, contemplating remote philosophical matters of life and death. Instead, Hamlet is forced to engage death on a visceral level, as an unwelcome and unfathomable figure in his life. He cannot ignore thoughts of death, nor can he grieve and get on with his life, as most people do. He is a melancholy man, and he can see only darkness in his future—if, indeed, he is to have a future at all. Throughout the play, and particularly in his two most famous soliloquies, Hamlet struggles with the competing compulsions to avenge his father’s death or to embrace his own. Hamlet is a man caught in a moral dilemma, and his inability to reach a resolution condemns himself and nearly everyone close to him.