An Ethical View of Hamlet
In the play Hamlet, a number of questions arise--was it truly necessary for all the blood and murder to be written to make a point? Were his actions that followed, rational or justified? Was it ethical? Granted for the time period, many barbaric actions were regarded as accepted or justifiable, however, was there one point where Hamlet could have gone past the accepted level of shall we say, normality?Ethics (n), branch of Philosophy concerned with conduct--the determination of the good, and the right and wrong.
Socrates questioned what Justice and Temperance really meant and where it's applications were. Though others frowned on this indulgence, they were forced to consider his thoughts as well. Instead of merely acknowledging the nouns and using them regardless of what they truly meant. Was what Hamlet doing "wrong"? If so, what is "wrong"?First, we should look into the issue of which field we draw the term "right". It is only appropriate to set the mood in England, late 1600. The economy is run by brute and barter, modern medicine included amputation, leeching and blood-letting. A man could be imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread and a maid can be ravished by her master, and nothing would be out of place. If someone wronged you, you were entitled to wrong them back, and this done with gusto. With no remorse for the moral or religious faculties of our present day society.
All the revenge, incest, murder, betrayal and hard-core violence that we've all come to love from Shakespeare; was it all done for naught? Is the message being translated across properly? Hamlet is supposed to be the hero and all the trials and tribulations that follow him only make him stronger and the justice more imminent-right? Did Hamlet go too far? Hamlet's father comes back from a peculiar death and finds his wife married with his brother and his son in shambles. After communicating the truth to Hamlet, it is expected that this story should be finished quite simply and quickly. However, this is not the case. Hamlet wants to make sure he himself has not gone insane and imagined his father's figure telling him the achievable means to, a quick relief of his overwhelming torment. Hamlet now begins the long painstaking process of validating the funny voice inside his head that tells him to kill his uncle who is now his father since he is now married to Hamlet's mother.
Women in the 1950s were typically stay-at-home moms with the task of cooking, cleaning, and tending to the children. Men were the sole providers of the family, and held superiority and masculinity over the women. Men were portrayed as more intelligent and rational than women, forcing a society that viewed women as subordinate. These rigid gender roles are what caused Esther Greenwood to challenge her expectations, thus causing her mental breakdown. To cope with her own thoughts and fears, Esther sought to find liberation by freeing herself from her oppressor: her mother. Mrs. Greenwood constantly pressured Esther into pursuing shorthand so that she would “have a practical skill as well as a college degree” (Author Sylvia Plath 40). Esther interpreted her mother’s comment as obtaining no other significance than submission to men. This amplifies Esther’s resentment towards her mother, and is a factor that contributes to her insanity. Along with challenging the strict gender roles of the 1950s, Esther was worried that she would never find a man to marry. She could not understand how to handle a relationship with a man, and felt pressured by society to start thinking of a future with a husband. Esther could not accept that kind of commitment in her life, and began to detach herself from relationships until she was solely dependent on
Like most young adults, Esther, a nineteen-year old college student, also struggles with choosing her career after college due to the suppressed social conditions for women and her lack of confidence about herself. In the chapter seven, she adds up things she is not good at. Plath employs symbolism to demonstrate what Esther is not confident about. She cannot cook unlike her grandmother and mother. As cooking represents domestic work and women were supposed to do housework especially at this time, she expresses her uncertainty about being a good wife and mother. Also, she does not know shorthand, which signifies a practical job. Esther mentions that her mother has kept telling her that she needs to learn shorthand to get a job despite having a bachelor’s degree in English as women had difficulty in succeeding as professionals in their careers during the time. As a widow raising two children, her mother has to deal with family finances. Therefore, her mother emphasizes a practical standpoint in terms of ca...
...a Plath page 93) After finding out that she had not made the writing course, Esther thought to herself; that even before entering the essay, she knew she would not make the course. Proving that even before entering her essay for the college, she had no confidence in being accepted.
...ies, she goes back to the piano and finds two songs. She begins to play “Pleading Child,” the song that caused the breaking point of her relationship with her mother. This song, with its fast and aggressive melody, best represents the mother’s aggressive attitude towards her daughter. Then Jing-mei plays the song next to “Pleading Child,” called “Perfectly Contented.” It turned out to be lighter and slower. It is a much happier song. Jing-mei’s determination to be herself, “Perfectly Contented,” corresponds with this song. “And after I played them both a few times, I realized they were two halves of the same song.” (499). Like the ying-yang and the songs, Jing-mei’s relationship with her mother may seem disastrous and apart, but together they share a strong bond that makes them whole. Even though the two disagree, like the songs, they form one beautiful song.
Originally titled The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke, this tragedy has been reproduced more times than any other play written by William Shakespeare (en.wikipedia.org 1 of 9). Prince Hamlet also has the lengthiest appearance of any character in all of Shakespeare's plays (en.wikpedia.org 6 of 9). In the play, Prince Hamlet is caught between balancing his need to avenge his father's death, dealing with the disgust he felt for Gertrude and Claudius' love affair, and maintaining the relationship he has with Ophelia without exposing his plans to kill his uncle Claudius for the murder of King Hamlet.
Even though Hamlet is a prince, he has little control over the course of his life. In that time many things were decided for the princes and princesses such as their education and even who they married. This was more or less the normal way of life for a child of the monarch. But in the case of Hamlet, any of the control he thought he had, fell away with the murder of his father. Having his father, the king, be killed by his own brother, sent Hamlet into a state of feeling helpless and out of control. Cooped up in a palace with no real outlet, he tries to control at least one aspect of his life. Hamlet deliberately toys with Ophelia's emotions in order to feel in control of something since he cannot control the situation with Claudius.
The fact that Esther couldn't really accept her father's death contributed to career problems: she had no idea of what to do with her life, she `thought that if my father hadn't died he would have taught me....`
The way we see ourselves is often reflected in the way we act. Hamlet views himself as different to those young nobles around him such as Fortinbras and Laertes. This reality leads us to believe that over time he has become even more motivated to revenge his father's death, and find out who his true friends are. How can you be honest in a world full of deceit and hate? His seven soliloquies tell us that while the days go by he grows more cunning as he falls deeper into his madness. This fact might have lead Hamlet to believe that suicide is what he really wants for his life's course.
Jing-Mei tries to live up to her mother’s expectations but feels that her mother expects more from her than she can deliver. She doesn’t understand why her mother is always trying to change her and won’t accept her for who she is. She feels pressure from her family when she is compared to her cousin Waverly and all her accomplishments. Soon the conflict grows to resentment as her mother tests her daily on academics, eventually causing Jing-Mei to give up while her mother struggles to get her attention and cooperation. Her mother avoids arguing with her daughter early in the story, continuing to encourage her to strive for fame. Her mother’s next assignment for her daughter is piano lessons. This goes along pretty well until her mother forces her to participate in a talent show. The daughter’s failure on her performance at the talent show causes embarrassment to her mother. Conflict is evident when two days later, after the talent show, she reminds her daughter that it’s time for piano practice and the daughter refuses to obey her mother. The conflict that the daughter feels boils over in an outburst of anger and resentment towards her mother for trying to make her something that she is not. Harsh words are spoken causing the mother to retreat and not speak of this event ever
Sylvia Plath portrayed a lot of meaning in this book. The main idea and meaning that she, as a writer, was trying to portray to the reader, is to understand how the worries, burdens, and pressures of being a young, mature adult are enough to put someone, like Esther in a depression so deep that it gives the illusion to the reader that she is insane and not in touch with reality. I believe that it is a matter of her being depressed and not of her being insane because of all that is on her mind she cant think clearly which makes her seem insane because if the strange things that she talks of such as not being able to sleep or eat, or even write. I think that the author did a very good job of making her seem depressed to the point of “insanity” because of how she Esther feel like she wasn’t sleeping when really she was sleeping for hours upon hours when she was put into the institutions. At an earlier
Throughout the play, Hamlet thinks about the moral consequences of revenge, and as a result his revenge is delayed. Morality is the quality of being in accord with the standards of right or good conduct. In Hamlet, Hamlet struggles morally to accomplish his fathers’ ghost demand of revenging for him. A great example of Hamlet acting morally, is when as he was heading to his mother, who asked for him, he sees the king in church praying to God for forgiveness. When he sees the king praying, he thought it will be better if he killed him now in order to end his struggle. But as he was approaching the king to revenge his fathers’ death, he is he...
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.
Shakespeare’s play Hamlet is a complex and ambiguous public exploration of key human experiences surrounding the aspects of revenge, betrayal and corruption. The Elizabethan play is focused centrally on the ghost’s reoccurring appearance as a symbol of death and disruption to the chain of being in the state of Denmark. The imagery of death and uncertainty has a direct impact on Hamlet’s state of mind as he struggles to search for the truth on his quest for revenge as he switches between his two incompatible values of his Christian codes of honour and humanist beliefs which come into direct conflict. The deterioration of the diseased state is aligned with his detached relationship with all women as a result of Gertrude’s betrayal to King Hamlet which makes Hamlet question his very existence and the need to restore the natural order of kings. Hamlet has endured the test of time as it still identifies with a modern audience through the dramatized issues concerning every human’s critical self and is a representation of their own experience of the bewildering human condition, as Hamlet struggles to pursuit justice as a result of an unwise desire for revenge.
Bristol, Michael D. “The Customary and the Ethical: Understanding Hamlet’s Bad Habits.” Shakespeare Studies 40 (2012): 70–76. Web. 24 Apr. 2014.
Morality is a remarkable dispute of a person’s actions within one’s own mind. Typically, everyone in the human species possesses a sense of their own regards to the matter of positive or negative outcomes. In William Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, the main character faces a vast majority of internal struggles throughout his story. Hamlet is surrounded by tragedy and betrayal. Hamlet’s endeavors in the play coincide with those of a modern day soldier. Hamlet’s character relates to a soldier on the aspects of honor and murder, but they differ in their sense of morality.