A brilliant mind can spark greatness, or tragedy. William Shakespeare’s Hamlet revolves around a young prince who upon the revelation of his untimely father’s death to be by the hand of his uncle devotes himself to avenge his father and to murder his Uncle Claudius. Hamlet’s delay in the necessary slaughter of Claudius is the result of indecision which is the product of his overtly contemplative mind. This explicitly introspective mind gives reason for him to constantly question and analyze the vast difference between appearance and reality. As well, he constantly over analyzes the soul after death which causes him to ponder what Claudius’ quality of life after death will be like and wants to make sure it is not the joyous, successful life that he has presently. Overall, when he wants to act, he over thinks the results and fails to.
The intense exploration of appearance and reality is truly at the core of Hamlet’s character, and is the by-product of his inability to just accept what is what. To truly understand why Hamlet delays in the righteous murder of his treacherous uncle, one must analyze this important detail about Hamlets manner. One of the first few lines Hamlet speaks that give true insight to his intelligence are
I know not “seems.”
‘Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black…
Nor the dejected haviour of the visage,
Together with all forms, modes, shapes of grief,
That can denote me truly: these indeed seem,
For they are actions that a man might play;
But I have that within which passeth show;
These, but the trappings and the suits of woe. (1.2.76-86)
This symbolizes his intense insightfulness of the capacity of human emotion the ability to feel different from what ones ap...
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...d impulsively.
Overall, Hamlet is a tragedy that is the result of too much thought and too little action that is the result of excessive uncertainty. The powerful examination of appearance and reality dominates Hamlets thoughts and causes great questions, in which answers are never certain. The need to be certain of a terrible after life in either hell or purgatory for Claudius is the result of an obsession with death causes Hamlet to delay in his revenge. Lastly, Hamlets inability to act when it is not just impulsive causes him to fail in his preferred delivery of revenge. Hamlets mind, which is his greatest asset, turns out to also be his greatest downfall as it leads to over thinking of everything and causes him to delay in his revenge.
Works Cited
Shakespeare, William, Marilyn Eisenstat, and Ken Roy. Hamlet. Toronto: Harcourt Canada, 2003. Print.
... Hamlet is merely a young man, looking for revenge for the death of his father. A young man that has gone through hell and back since his fathers death, losing his love, his mother marrying another man, best friends betraying him, all of which finally lead to his demise. Hamlet shows that he understands real from fake, right from wrong and his enemies from his friends.
...ut his lifetime. With all the events occurring, Hamlet goes through so much stress, pain, and suffering from which started with the murder of his father. He has tried to understand his position in life, yet every step he takes, someone always steps in front of him, and it puts him in a worst situation from which he started. A young man like he should be out studying and having fun with his friends, but his two non family related friends betray him, and follow King Claudius' ruling. His mother who he once loves dearly and felt so close to also betrays him by ending her mourn so soon and remarrying to Claudius. Everyone in Denmark has a problem, and the "unweeded" garden is not being kept in good hands, for which bad things have come. The evil in everyone has come out, and Hamlet searched and searched for a reasoning in life, to only come out with one thing, nothing.
Hamlet. The son of a king. A man who could have had it all, but instead he chose the much more painful route of revenge and a life of bloodshed. The downfall of Hamlet is comparable to trying to hide a lie one has told. The deeper we try to cover the lie, the worse it gets and harder it becomes to do the right thing. The deeper the reader explores into Hamlets life, the messier and messier it becomes. With a mind full of suicidal thoughts and insanity with no effort to contain it can only lead one thing, and Hamlets downfall is the ultimate example. Pain, suffering, and extreme
Everyone has lied at one point or another in their life. Whether it is a small white lie about an outfit’s mishaps or something that ruined a relationship, lying or hiding the truth is a universal theme that everyone could relate to. In Hamlet, William Shakespeare uses the theme of deception to develop characters and cause their ultimate downfall in the play. Deception is not only woven in the plot but also portrays through the characters’ action and personality, such as Claudius, Polonius, and Hamlet.
What is the appropriate time of mourning for a lost loved one? In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Hamlets mother, Gertrude, mourned the passing of her husband for less than two months. She then decided to marry King Hamlet's brother, Claudius. Hamlets mother's new marriage is what bothers him the most. Hamlet believes Claudius will never live up to the legacy left by his father as the King of Denmark. The social context that is being revealed to the reader through Hamlets soliloquy describes three character traits he possesses: suicidal thoughts, concern for the well-being of his country, confusion towards his father's ghost and whether or not it’s in the countries best interest for him to get revenge. This also portrays how Queen Gertrude’s hasty nuptials after not having a proper time of mourning, goes against society in this era. Furthermore, this foreshadows the vast effect this will have on Hamlet.
Hamlet tarnishes his image and sacrifices his dignity as a result of his ploy to fool those around him and avenge his father’s murder. Initially, the character of Hamlet is portrayed as “a soldier” and “a scholar” with “a noble mind”. This description by Ophelia is one that the citizens of Elsinore including friends and family of Hamlet would have open-heartedly agreed to. After all, as Claudius said to Hamlet: “You are the most immediate to our throne...” Hamlet must act in a presentable state at all times so can be in favor with the people in the event that he were to become king. However, after the revelation by the Ghost that “The serpent that did sting thy father's life now wears his crown,” Hamlet is shocked but at the same time confused. He is forced into a conflict between acting and not acting ...
The complexity and effect of father-son relationships seems to be a theme that Shakespeare loved to explore in his writings. In Hamlet, the subject is used as a mechanism to identify the similarities between three very different characters: Fortinbras, Laertes, and Hamlet. They have each lost their fathers to violent deaths, which leads them to seek vengeance. As different as they may seem, they all share the common desire to avenge their father’s deaths. The method they each approach this is what differentiates each of their characters, and allows the audience to discern their individual characteristics. Fortinbras, Laertes, and Hamlet’s intense loyalty to their fathers drives them to individual extreme measures of revenge, exemplifying Shakespeare’s masterful use of describing the human psyche during Elizabethan times.
As a young man, Hamlet's mind is full of many questions about the events that occur during his complicated life. This leads to the next two categories of his mind. His need to seek the truth and his lack of confidence in his own impulses. Hamlets’ confusion in what he wants to ...
Hamlet fails as a prince and as an individual because he was under stress, indecisiveness as he surrendered to the soldier, the battle of inner voice and the external roar, which led to his downfall. Hamlet wanted to kill Claudius; finally he lost his life also. Double thinking is good but if it prolonged as unending it is destructive in result.
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.
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.
Hamlet is a scholar, speaker, actor, and prince. For some reason, Hamlet is not able to avenge his father's death without considerable delay. There is one major flaw in Hamlet's character which causes him to postpone the murder of Claudius. I believe that this flaw is Hamlet's idealism. While his idealism is a good trait, in this case, Hamlet's environment and his...
As the play’s tragic hero, Hamlet exhibits a combination of good and bad traits. A complex character, he displays a variety of characteristics throughout the play’s development. When he is first introduced in Act I- Scene 2, one sees Hamlet as a sensitive young prince who is mourning the death of his father, the King. In addition, his mother’s immediate marriage to his uncle has left him in even greater despair. Mixed in with this immense sense of grief, are obvious feelings of anger and frustration. The combination of these emotions leaves one feeling sympathetic to Hamlet; he becomes a very “human” character. One sees from the very beginning that he is a very complex and conflicted man, and that his tragedy has already begun.
Like all Shakespearean tragedies, Hamlet’s ending is no different in end-result. Hamlet’s separation from society and his self-imposed confusion caused by over-thinking results in the unnecessary deaths of most of the major characters. In turn, Hamlet’s pre-occupation with factors inessential to his mission of revenge slows down his action. It is this internal struggle that illustrates the intensity and complexity of Shakespeare’s revenge tragedy, something that is often looked at from a psychological perspective.
Hamlet is the best known tragedy in literature today. Here, Shakespeare exposes Hamlet’s flaws as a heroic character. The tragedy in this play is the result of the main character’s unrealistic ideals and his inability to overcome his weakness of indecisiveness. This fatal attribute led to the death of several people which included his mother and the King of Denmark. Although he is described as being a brave and intelligent person, his tendency to procrastinate prevented him from acting on his father’s murder, his mother’s marriage, and his uncle’s ascension to the throne.