The Characters of Brutus and Hamlet in Hamlet and Julius Caesar
Written one year apart from the other, one cannot fail to recognize the parallels between William Shakespeare's tragedies Julius Caesar and Hamlet. To begin, they are both stories of assassinations gone horribly wrong. Although the details of the plays are different, the two assassins (Brutus and Hamlet) provide interesting comparison. Through these two killers, Shakespeare reveals the different levels of justice; one’s personal sense of justice; others’ perception of justice; the justice of the monarchy that supports Shakespeare’s craft. Through this, the audience realizes that a just person is not always a humble one, a condition that may turn out to be a fatal flaw in the end. When a man decides to play God by taking justice into his own hands, the world can unravel much more quickly than he had ever imagined.
Justice in Hamlet is a conflict between two Bible teachings: The Old Testament says, "An eye for an eye," but the New Testament preaches, "Turn the other cheek." Hamlet’s peers beg him to let his father rest in peace and accept his mother’s remarriage, an act that would be in accordance with the New Testament. Claudius, Hamlet’s mother’s new husband, himself p...
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Bradley., A. C. Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth. New York: Penguin Books, 1991.
Durband, Alan. Shakespeare Made Easy: Julius Caesar. Barron's Educational Series, Inc.; New York. 1985.
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. Ed. Suzanne L. Wofford. Boston: St. Martin's Press, 1994.
Shakespeare, William. Julius Caesar. Ed. Alan Durband. London: Hutchinson & Co. Publishers Ltd., 1984.
The narrative begins in the unassuming, yet ardent voice that carries the reader throughout his life story. He makes his plan...
Shakespeare, William. "Hamlet." Madden, Frank. Exploring Literature. 4th ed. New York: Pearson Longman, 2009. Print 539-663
“To be or not to be, that is the question.” It is a well-known quote from Hamlet who was created by Shakespeare. William Shakespeare is known as a great poet, playwright, and actor. He had written about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and many other writings (Bevington, 1). He was not only a playwright, but also he was the father of 1,380 characters (Bevington, 2), including Hamlet, Romeo, Juliet, Claudio, Prospero and Henry V. Shakespeare successfully created different characters and each of them had their unique personalities. Most of the well-known characters were not only alive in the plays, but also their characteristics could be found in the reality.
Goldman, Michael. "Hamlet and Our Problems." Critical Essays on Shakespeare's Hamlet. Ed. David Scott Kaston. New York City: Prentice Hall International. 1995. 43-55
In Chapter 8, Grendel exclaims, “I’m a machine. Like all of you. Blood-lust and rage are my character,” (Gardner 123). This profound statement establishes a connection between Grendel and the ambiguous “you,” the reader. The monster, though he confesses to his wrongdoing, asserts that readers are no better than he. Countless bible verses reiterate this concept: “For all have sinned,” (Romans 3:23) “[Humans] are all. .impure with sin,” (Isaiah 64:6). Gardner’s reminder to readers of mankind’s predisposition to sin earns pity for the monster. He expands on these sympathies by describing the nature of Grendel’s lonely existence. “But there was one thing worse,” Grendel states after discovering the dragon’s charm, “no weapon could cut me,” (Gardner 75). In this moment, nihilism overcomes Grendel; if fighting poses no danger, it has no purpose, and neither does he. Any reader who has had an experience which challenged his or her values cannot help but feel empathetic towards the purposeless creature. Perhaps more piteous, however, is the suggestion that Grendel has no choice in being “the dark side. . the terrible race God cursed,” (Gardner 51). The dragon condemns Grendel as “the brute existent by which [humans] learn to define themselves,” telling him that it is worthless to better his character (Gardner 72). It is not until after
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. The Norton Anthology of World Literature. 2nd ed. Vol. C. Ed. Sarah Lawall. New York: Norton, 2005. Print.
...th their daddy's gun. Another rule was that after every time we used our guns we checked atleast twice to make sure the gun was empty. Also on the chance that a child didn't listen and went for a gun we always keep our ammunition in a different building. Having the ammo in one room and the gun in the other simply isn't enough since most kids like to wander around and look through stuff, so we always kept our guns in the house and the ammo outside in our barn on one of the top shelves. While these rules may seem almost to simple to work effectively when they are properly enforced they are all you really need to keep your kids away from your guns.
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, Marilyn Eisenstat, and Ken Roy. Hamlet. 2nd ed. Toronto: Harcourt Canada, 2003. Print.
And then there's Microsoft themselves. After Bill Gates handed over CEO to Steve Ballmer, all hell broke loose as humans raged about him. During the first twenty years of Microsoft, they were considered an evil monopolistic empire, destroying all competitors that came their way. Back then, if you wanted word processing software, you used Office. Want a computer o...
From this play we learn of the difficulty associated with taking a life as Hamlet agonises as to how and when he should kill Claudius and furthermore whether he should take his own life. Hamlet being a logical thinker undergoes major moral dilemma as he struggles to make accurate choices. From the internal conflict that the playwright expresses to us it is evident that it can kill someone, firstly mentally then physically. The idea of tragedy is explored in great detail through conflict where the playwright’s main message is brought across to the audience; Shakespeare stresses to his audience the point that conflict be it internal or external it can bring upon the downfall of great people and in turn have them suffer a tragic fate. It is Shakespeare’s aim to show us the complexity of man and that moral decisions are not easily made.
Poor Gimpel; everyday life is not easy for the everyday bread maker. Every day he is the target of jokes and pranks from the townspeople, some of which are really cruel. I sympathize with poor Gimpel; I remember how it felt getting bullied and mistreated like Gimpel. I know how it feels to be mistreated in such a way. Later on, he is betrayed by his own wife, Elka for numerous infidelities. Just because Gimpel lets all the townspeople screw around with him and Elka lie to him constantly, does that really make him a fool? Is Gimpel really any bit dopey, incompetent, or lack moral thought? Singer portrays Gimpel as a fool in his story, “Gimpel the Fool,” but he is truly not because he shows self-awareness, true feelings, and even wisdom.
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.
Bradley, A.C. “King Lear.” Shakespearian Tragedy. Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth. Macmillan and Co., London, 1919. Project Gutenberg. Web. 26 Apr. 2015.
...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.