When discussions arise on great literary works, William Shakespeare’s popular tragedy, Hamlet, ranks among the best. Often referenced as a source of excellence for playwrights, the apparent stereotypical, melodramatic, female depictions cannot be overlooked. While gender differences exists through characters Hamlet, Claudius, and Gertrude, collectively, they all affect the overall plot and outcome.
Tragic characters play an effective, leading role in a tragedy. The leading role that a tragic character assumes normally controls the actions and reactions of a setting. Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet is no different, effectively exposing the vulnerabilities and short comings of tragic characters, Hamlet and Claudius; while providing the overall worth of Gertrude and Ophelia. Tragic characters, often take part in an irrational, avoidable plot, resulting into a drawn-out moral lesson. Literary analyst Authur Kirsch, elaborates on his perception of Shakespeare’s tragic hero themes stating “The irony is in a large sense, ‘comic,’ but it only exacerbates the passion for the heroes. ‘Shakespeare’s heroes not only are obviously subject to the evanescence of human passion, but they constantly protest against it, and that consciousness and ultimately unavailing protest constitute a substantial part of their suffering”(Kirsch 87). Tragic characters are afforded many opportunities to resolve situations but it seems, driven emotions have blinded them from avoidable flaws, especially in the case of Prince Hamlet.
Hamlet, one of the most, memorable characters, embodies the term tragic hero. Shakespeare introduces the young prince, by displaying his innocence contrasted to the evil that encompasses him. The murder of his father as well as the impul...
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Works Cited
Tiffany, Grace. "Hamlet, reconciliation, and the just state." Renascence: Essays on Values in Literature 58.2 (2005): 111+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 25 Nov. 2011.
Bradley, A. C. "Shakespeare's Tragic Period- 'Hamlet'' and ' 'Hamlet'." Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on ' Hamlet', 'Othello', 'King Lear', 'Macbeth'. 2nd ed. Macmillan, 1905. 79-128. Rpt. in Shakespearean Criticism. Ed. Laurie Lanzen Harris. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale Research, 1984. Literature Resource Center. Web. 26 Nov. 2011
Smith, Rebecca. "A Heart Cleft in Twain: The Dilemma of Shakespeare's Gertrude." The Woman's Part: Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare. Ed. Carolyn Ruth Swift, Lenz Gayle Greene, and Carol Thomas Neely. 1980. 194-208. Rpt. in Shakespearean Criticism. Ed. Dana Ramel Barnes. Vol. 35. Detroit: Gale Research, 1997. Literature Resource Center. Web. 26 Nov. 2011.
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Ekici, Sara (2009). Feminist Criticism: Female Characters in Shakespeare's Plays Othello and Hamlet. Munich: GRIN Publishing.
The morality of the hero also plays a key role in the nature of his heroism. Hamlet holds himself to high moral standards and ethics. “We, the ...
Bradley, A.C. "Shakespeare's Tragic Period--Hamlet." Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth. Toronto: MacMillan, 1967.
Bradley, A.C. "Shakespeare's Tragic Period--Hamlet." Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth. Toronto: MacMillan, 1967.
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.
William Shakespeare is widely known for his ability to take a sad story, illustrate it with words, and make it a tragedy. Usually human beings include certain discrepancies in their personalities that can at times find them in undesirable or difficult situations. However, those that are exemplified in Shakespeare’s tragedies include “character flaws” which are so destructive that they eventually cause their downfall. For example, Prince Hamlet, of Shakespeare’s tragedy play “Hamlet,” is seemingly horrified by what the ghost of his father clarifies concerning his death. Yet the actions executed by Hamlet following this revelation do not appear to coincide with the disgust he expresses immediately after the ghost alerts him of the true cause of his death. Thus, it is apparent that the instilled self doubt of Prince Hamlet is as the wand that Shakespeare uses to transform an otherwise sad story to an unfortunate tragedy.
Mack, Maynard. "The World of Hamlet." Yale Review. vol. 41 (1952) p. 502-23. Rpt. in Shakespeare: Modern Essays in Criticism. Rev. ed. Ed. Leonard F. Dean. New York: Oxford University P., 1967.
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. The Norton Anthology of World Literature. 2nd ed. Vol. C. Ed. Sarah Lawall. New York: Norton, 2005. Print.
Shakespeare, William, Marilyn Eisenstat, and Ken Roy. Hamlet. 2nd ed. Toronto: Harcourt Canada, 2003. Print.
Shakespeare’s Hamlet is arguably one of the best plays known to English literature. It presents the protagonist, Hamlet, and his increasingly complex path through self discovery. His character is of an abnormally complex nature, the likes of which not often found in plays, and many different theses have been put forward about Hamlet's dynamic disposition. One such thesis is that Hamlet is a young man with an identity crisis living in a world of conflicting values.
William Shakespeare has represented women in a wide range of characterizations and notions. The female characters play a significant or trivial roles in his plays, but nonetheless their actions affect the main characters throughout the play. In his most famous and memorable play Hamlet the character Gertrude played an impact on Hamlet by her acts of selfishness depicted throughout the play. However, in some cases she did mean well for her son, but her actions only resulted in a rage. Gertrude’s poor judgments of betrayal and selfishness result in the tragic conflicts with her son Hamlet.
Hamlet is one of Shakespeare’s most well-known tragedies. At first glance, it holds all of the common occurrences in a revenge tragedy which include plotting, ghosts, and madness, but its complexity as a story far transcends its functionality as a revenge tragedy. Revenge tragedies are often closely tied to the real or feigned madness in the play. Hamlet is such a complex revenge tragedy because there truly is a question about the sanity of the main character Prince Hamlet. Interestingly enough, this deepens the psychology of his character and affects the way that the revenge tragedy takes place. An evaluation of Hamlet’s actions and words over the course of the play can be determined to see that his ‘outsider’ outlook on society, coupled with his innate tendency to over-think his actions, leads to an unfocused mission of vengeance that brings about not only his own death, but also the unnecessary deaths of nearly all of the other main characters in the revenge tragedy.
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.
The perfection of Hamlet’s character has been called in question - perhaps by those who do not understand it. The character of Hamlet stands by itself. It is not a character marked by strength of will or even of passion, but by refinement of thought and sentiment. Hamlet is as little of the hero as a man can be. He is a young and princely novice, full of high enthusiasm and quick sensibility - the sport of circumstances, questioning with fortune and refining on his own feelings, and forced from his natural disposition by the strangeness of his situation.
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.