When such a task as murder must be committed, the line between avenging and revenging becomes unclear. This is seen in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The deceased king’s son, Hamlet, embarks on a quest to avenge the death of his father, who was murdered by his uncle. Throughout the play, and the progression of his quest, it is apparent that Hamlet is a complicated character. As the play progresses the reader is able to see that Hamlet has an inability to take action, portrayed through his failed attempts at murdering his uncle to avenge his father and his indecisive thoughts about suicide. The task of killing his uncle eventually becomes complicated because it becomes unclear whether Hamlet wishes to murder his uncle to avenge his father, or for his own revenge. Through the process of Hamlet’s quest he seems to go mad, his emotions changing rapidly and his feelings towards others in his life completely change. Through the lens of minor characters in the play, one can better see the changes in Hamlet’s behavior. When looking at Old Hamlet, Hamlet’s deceased father, it can be said that the thought of him fuels many of Hamlet’s decisions, thoughts, and actions because of his deep love for his father. On the contrary, one can say the opposite for his mother Gertrude. She seems to fuel the anger and disgust in Hamlet because of the decisions that she has made after the death of the king. One last emotion that Hamlet eventually loses is love, or infatuation. This is shown through Hamlet’s behavior towards Ophelia, the woman he was so infatuated with, but later wanted nothing to do with, as he is at the peak of his obsession. All of these changes in Hamlet’s emotions are important throughout the text as a whole, but can be difficult to gr...
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... the death of his father. But as the play progresses so does Hamlet’s negative behavior. With such anger brewing inside of him from the death of his father, the inconsiderate actions of his mother, and the loss of love towards Ophelia, Hamlet has developed into a highly cynical character that is fueled by hateful revenge rather than motivated by the act of avenging. Hamlet’s display of emotions and behaviors portrays the effects that revenge can instill on a person. It takes away love and cheeriness and replaces it with hatred and irritation. Hamlet’s behavior also portrays the struggle one goes through when juggling the act of avenging and greed in the act of revenge. Through the analysis of minor characters in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, it is clear that the greed that accompanies revenge can drastically alter one’s behavior towards life, and individuals in it.
Vengeance, redemption, and desire plague Denmark’s royal family in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet after a haunting family secret forces Prince Hamlet to choose between morality and honor. After Hamlet’s father dies, the kingdom hastily adjusts to his uncle Claudius’ reign; however, Hamlet remains devastated and loyal to his father. When his father’s ghost unveils that Claudius poisoned King Hamlet, the prince’s devastation mixes with a fervent desire for revenge that eventually dictates his every thought. Despite being ostensibly committed to avenging his father’s death, Hamlet habitually discovers reasons to delay action. As Hamlet’s procrastination persists, his familial relations deteriorate and ultimately cause him to reevaluate his position in society. Furthermore, Hamlet becomes chronically paranoid and calculates each aspect of his plan; therefore, the audience doubts his ability to successfully exact revenge. This paranoia escalates exponentially and fuels an uncontrollable obsession with perfection that usurps his sanity. Although Hamlet remains devoted to his murdered father, his perpetual procrastination eventually leads to mental degeneration through decaying relationships, prompting incessant paranoia, and fostering uncontrollable obsessions.
Each person goes through life questioning the whys and what ifs, but seldom do people act on those revengeful feelings unless they reach a point of action. Hamlet reaches such a point in life where wordplay no longer suffices, and he must act not out of necessity but out of filial duty and honor. In this soliloquy, Hamlet sheds his attachment for words and begins to act on his deeply held feelings of revenge/
In the play, Hamlet, written by William Shakespeare, Hamlet the main character struggles to avenge the death of his father. Fear paralyzes him as he holds off on getting revenge on the new King Claudius, who stole the royal throne by murdering Hamlet’s father. However, it isn’t just fear that makes him hesitant as he reasons the situation. Hamlet hesitates to take action because he struggles with making his own choices, just like his weak-minded mother, Gertrude.
Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” is a story about revenge, murder, and insanity, which leads to the untimely deaths of many characters within the play. As Hamlet seeks revenge from the murderer of his father, the story unravels into a wave of conflict and play on of words; all the while getting ever closer to the truth behind Hamlets fathers death. Hamlet a son of a murdered father strays from his obligations though, and causes more trouble than what its worth to the ones he loves, just to keep his mind at ease; this leads to the rebirth of old characters and how they see him, some being left in sorrow and hatred over his impetuous actions. It’s a really remarkable play, and to see all these sons seeking revenge for there fathers really speaks about the human tendency to overlook key things; if you are the cause of such hatred what hate can be created because of that, this is what ultimately Shakespeare is trying to show us through “Hamlet” and to show it in such a way is a perfect example of this.
Revenge is a major theme throughout William Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet. This theme provides motivation for characters to murder each other throughout the play, whether or not characters seek revenge for themselves. Because Laertes and Hamlet are so absorbed with wanting to exact revenge upon certain people, they ultimately cause the deaths of all of the main characters in the play. Revenge is the main root of evil in this play.
Minor characters serve important roles in many works of literature. In a tragedy, these characters are used predominantly for the sole purpose to relieve tension through humour. Although typically true, it does not apply to William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, which is a tragedy about Danish prince Hamlet and his battle to avenge his father’s murder. Some may claim that the comedic scenes of minor characters, Polonius, Osric, and the grave diggers, only serve to provide humour. However this is inaccurate because Shakespeare uses these minor characters to reinforce the themes of appearance vs reality and death and the afterlife as well as to reveal Polonius and Hamlet’s character traits. When analyzing the play in
Revenge is a recurring theme in Hamlet. Although Hamlet wants to avenge his father’s death, he is afraid of what would result from this. In the play Hamlet, Hamlet’s unwillingness to revenge appears throughout the text; Shakespeare exhibits this through Hamlet’s realization that revenge is not the right option, Hamlet‘s realization that revenge is the same as the crime which was already committed, and his understanding that to revenge is to become a “beast” and to not revenge is as well (Kastan 1).
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.
Theater audiences and literary enthusiasts are not spared of Shakespeare’s astonishing ability to capture the human spirit in his play Hamlet. The story of the tormented prince who desires revenge but is unable to take action delves deep into the human mind than plays before it. While some uninformed readers may write off Hamlet’s behavior to poor writing, it is clear that the Oedipus complex is the true driving force of Hamlet’s actions when delaying his revenge.
Throughout Hamlet, each character’s course of revenge surrounds them with corruption, obsession, and fatality. Shakespeare shows that revenge proves to be extremely problematic. Revenge causes corruption by changing an individual’s persona and nature. Obsession to revenge brings forth difficulties such as destroyed relationships. Finally, revenge can be the foundation to the ultimate sacrifice of fatality. Hamlet goes to show that revenge is never the correct route to follow, and it is always the route with a dead
In Hamlet Shakespeare is able to use revenge in an extremely skillful way that gives us such deep insight into the characters. It is an excellent play that truly shows the complexity of humans. You can see in Hamlet how the characters are willing to sacrifice t...
Hamlet’s mourning about the death of his father and the remarriage of his mother drives him to madness. This is the main characters inner tragedy that Shakespeare expresses in the play. First he considers suicide but the ghost of King Hamlet sends him on a different path, directing him to revenge his death. Shakespeare uses Hamlet to articulate his thoughts about life, death and revenge. Being a moral character he must decide if revenge is the right thing to do. Shakespeare relays many scenarios of reasoning to the audience about mankind His hero sets the wrongs on mankind right again.
One of the most popular characters in Shakespearean literature, Hamlet endures difficult situations within the castle he lives in. The fatal death of his father, and urge for revenge leads Hamlet into making unreasonable decisions. In William Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, Hamlet’s sanity diminishes as the story progresses, impacting the people around him as well as the timing and outcome of his revenge against Claudius.
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.
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.