Hamlet is full of death. The whole plot revolves around the death of King Hamlet, and death is what drives the play forward. Hamlet is surrounded by death and struggles with dealing with it. Before the tragic ending Hamlet loses his father to murder and his love to crazed suicide, along with murdering Polonius himself. Shakespeare uses Hamlet’s questioning of his own mortality and fear of death to connect with the human problem: that if we all die what is the point of living?
The opening scenes of the play show an interaction between Hamlet and the ghost of his recently murdered father, King Hamlet. Hamlet’s father reveals to him that he was in fact murdered and that he must avenge his death. The ghost does not implicitly say that Hamlet must
Hamlet considers it as it is a way to escape the pain and struggles of life especially after the suicide of Ophelia. Ophelia is driven mad throughout the play until she eventually cannot handle it anymore and ends her own life. Suicide at this time in England was considered illegal and one of the worst acts that could be committed as it was against the Bible in a very religious country. If one was successful in their suicide attempt they would be considered a disgrace and condemned to hell along with being buried outside of the city limits. Yet again Hamlet was surrounded with the death of someone he cared about and he showed this by creating a scene at her funeral. Hamlet states upon realizing it is Ophelia who has taken her own life: “I lov 'd Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers Could not (with all their quantity of love) Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her? (Ham.5.1.3613-3615). Hamlet is again jolted by the roller coaster of his feelings about mortality, death and in this case suicide. Suicide was a complicated issue at the time as it was considered illegal and how it affected people’s view of Ophelia. Michael MacDonald talks about this in another Shakespeare Quarterly article where he states: “My narrow purpose is to show that contemporary attitudes to suicide were more ambivalent and mortuary customs more uncertain.” (MacDonald 309). MacDonald is providing the argument that suicide
Hamlet has completed his task given to him by his ghostly father and Hamlet can die with something his father did not: Peace. Hamlet is at peace with his death as he was able to complete what he was tasked to accomplish. Hamlet will live on through his story. Along with this everyone he has known or loved, besides poor Horatio, has already passed and gone on to the unknown of the afterlife. So, Hamlet is at peace with his early death and has finally stopped worrying about the ambiguity of the death and how to deal with mortality. Throughout the play has struggled heavily with the idea of mortality and if we all die does it really matter what we do in this life or when we die. Harvey Birenbaum provides the argument that by the last few scenes of the play Hamlet has begun to come to terms with his destiny and has begun to accept his mortality and likely death as he states: “The third part, from our Act IV, Scene vi, consists of Hamlet’s return and the culmination of his destiny. His state is now the poise of integrated strength: “the readiness is all.”” (Birenbaum 20) Hamlet has essentially come to terms here with mortality and death bringing him peace, which is what everyone is trying to aim for in the end even if it is
Lewis mentions how “is not ‘a man who has to avenge his father’ but ‘a man who has been given a task by a ghost” (Lewis). The Ghost creates Hamlet’s and other characters minds. The topic or even the action of death appears because of the Ghost, but Lewis does not believe that those are the reasons why the subject of Hamlet is death. Lewis says, “The sense in which death is the subject of Hamlet will become apparent if we compare it with other plays”. He compares it with Macbeth, Brutus, Lear and Romeo where “death is the end”, “they think of dying: no one thinks, in these plays, of being dead” then for Hamlet “we are kept thinking about it all the time”. Hamlet’s fear of death; not a “physical fear of dying but a fear of being dead. With Lewis’s experience he says he wished that when he was younger “I could have enjoyed; but I had got it into my head that the only proper and grown-up way was of appreciating Shakespeare was to be very interested in the truth and subtlety of his character drawing”. So, he believes that it ruins the play if you over analyse
This encounter is essential to the plot, in that it provides for Hamlet's return from England and sets the stage for Hamlet's discovery of Ophelia's death. It brings Hamlet from the state in which he was able to easily arrange for the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to one in which he can feel deep sorrow at the loss of Ophelia. It further grants him a better perspective on the nature of death and on his own fate. Its sharp focus on death further serves to prepare the audience for the conclusion of the play. Up to this point, Hamlet has been an active agent in trying to fulfill his destiny as prescribed by his father's ghost. His actions were disorganized and his goal continually foiled. For example, his attempt to control the situation renders him incapable of killing Claudius when he is at prayer, since Hamlet wishes to manipulate the circumstances of Claudius' death so that he is "about some act that has no relish in't" (III, iv, 91-2). The lesson of the graveyard is that death is inevitable, not contrived. Having learned this lesson, Hamlet is a more passive agent of his own fate and the plot resolves itself. The ...
In the beginning of the play, Hamlet's father comes to him as a ghost from the grave. He tells Hamlet of his uncle's betrayal of him and tells Hamlet that he must kill Claudius to set things right. Through this event, Hamlet...
With Hamlet having to emotionally deal with his fathers’ death and the stigma of incest in his family, could be his undoing. Hamlet shares how dispirited he genuinely is. Hamlet expounds his heart-ache, but it is virtually like he does not want to kill himself. Towards the cessation of the passage Hamlet seems homogeneous to he has verbalized himself out of committing suicide. Ophelia and the love he has for her seems to be the only thing that is keeping Hamlet from killing himself.
To begin with, Hamlet starts off his speech asking, “Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer/ The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune/ Or to take arms against a sea of troubles/ And by opposing end them” (Shakespeare 3.1.57-60). He wonders if he would be more noble if he took his own life and end his sorrows than if he continued to endure him. This question shows the pain and grief that Hamlet has experienced since the death of his father. According to Ophelia, later in Act 3 Scene 1, she reveals that Hamlet was once the obvious successor to the throne since he was charismatic and admired by the people. Clearly, in this part of the play, he is suicidal, and he is uncertain about many of the big decisions in his life. This extreme change in Hamlet’s behaviors makes the audience worry about Hamlet’s mental health. Is his feigned madness transforming into true insanity? However, his comparison to death and sleep suggests that Hamlet is in a state of reflection and learning. Hamlet’s analogy between death and sleep is the musings of an ordinary man who wonders what happens to a soul once its body dies. Just as no one knows what dreams they will experience when they lay in bed, no knows what they will experience when their body is finally laid in a grave.
Since now Hamlet has been arrogant about the idea that death can not touch him however death is ever looming overhead. Until now “No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither, with modesty enough and likelihood to lead it, as thus: Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is earth; of earth we make loam; and why of that loam, whereto he was converted might they not stop a beer barrel? Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay, Might stop a hole to keep the wind away. O, that that earth which kept the world in awe Should patch a wall t ' expel the winter 's flaw!”(5.1.214-223) Hamlet finally has figured out that religion has nothing to do with death. Even though religion is thought to effect death it does not since each man will face it no matter what religion. He explains that faith can not change the fact that he will die. He names great Kings that have turned into dust to help make his point even stronger that he will become the same that in the end we all become dust and are blown away with the wind. All of a sudden Hamlet is himself facing death. His last line of the play is “The rest is silence.”(5.2.343) He has finally met his end and even though he has never been a religious man he has still died. He says it’s silent to show that nothing can be said for the next life that may or may not be. Religion has no meaning when it come to death because, it comes
In act 3, Hamlet questions the unbearable pain of life and views death through the metaphor of sleep. "To be or not to be: that is the question: / whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer / the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles / and, by opposing end them. To die, to sleep / no more" (3.1.64-68), details which bring up new thoughts about what happens in the after life. Thus, Hamlet contemplates suicide, but his lacking knowledge about what awaits him in the afterworld causes him to question what death will bring. For example he states, "The undiscovered country, from whose bourn / no traveler returns, puzzles the will / and makes us rather bear those ills we have / than fly to others that we know not of" (3.1.87-90), again revealing his growing concern with "Truth" and his need for certainty. Once again, death appears in act 4 with the suicide of Ophelia, the demand for Hamlet's execution and the gravedigger scene. All of these situations tie back with how death is all around Hamlet and feeds his obsession with it. Finally in act 5, Hamlet meets his own death, as his obsession to know leads to the death of himself.
To further his terms with the death of Ophelia, he is shown the spot Ophelia will be buried in, a few plots away. Showing that her death, is and will be treated just as everyone else will. While the gravedigger tells Hamlet much earlier in the play “"not for ever with they vailed lids/ Seek for thy noble father in the dust" (1.2.70-71) and reminded that "your father lost a father” in other words there is no time to mourn the dead, as death is much like a chain, and quite bluntly he expresses its best to really just move on. Shakespeare reveals this as a turning point for Hamlet, as he realizes the commonness of death, and the value of life itself, and begins to ponder about his own mortality and destined fate.
Written by the great William Shakespeare, Hamlet is a classic play that, like many of his works, is considered one of the greatest tragedies written in the world. Telling the story of a prince named Hamlet who has lost his father and had his throne taken by his uncle, a person who has also married Hamlet’s mom, it’s one of the longest plays Shakespeare has written with death counts that never end along with containing a climax that is essentially a glorious affair of death. Furthermore, it is recognized for its usage of deaths early on as the play essentially starts with the description of death of King Hamlet, a character that is the roots of all that is developing throughout the play. However, Hamlet
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.
Death threads its way through the entirety of Hamlet, from the opening scene’s confrontation with a dead man’s ghost to the blood bath of the final scene, which occurs as a result of the disruption of the natural order of Denmark. Hamlet is a man with suicidal tendencies which goes against his Christian beliefs as he is focused on the past rather than the future, which causes him to fall into the trap of inaction on his path of revenge. Hamlet’s moral dilemma stems from the ghost’s appearance as “a spirit of health or a goblin damned”, making Hamlet decide whether it brings with...
Shakespeare shows the ideology of death internalizing within Hamlet first with Hamlet’s emotions following the death of Old Hamlet. In the scene in which Hamlet is introduced, Hamlet is portrayed as an embodiment of death, dressed in “suits of a solemn black”(1.2.81) and has “dejected havior of the visage”(1.2.84). Hamlet’s physical representation as death signifies his lack of desire to continue living himself, being detached and discontent with the world around him. Hamlet, in his first soliloquy, opens by stating, “Sullied flesh would melt/Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew,/ Or that the Everlasting had not fixed/His canon ‘gainst Self Slaughter!”(1.2.133-135). This is significant, as it shows Hamlet’s full willingness to commit suicide and end Hamlet’s internal pain, if not for suicide being a sin under religion. The reason for Hamlet’s desire for death and his dis...
In conclusion suicide is used all throughout Shakespeare’s works. Suicide is actually used an unlucky thirteen times in some of his most popular plays. In Hamlet suicide is an issue of controversy and question. Hamlet is a confused man from everything that he has experienced in such a short period of time. And even though Hamlet contemplates suicide he is not the one who suffers from it. Ophelia is actually is the victim of the actual act of suicide. His morality, religion, and philosophical views on suicide keep him from committing the dreaded act. Even though suicide still goes on today and the questioning of the issue, it has been like this for a very long time.
Hamlet’s anger and grief- primarily stemming from his mother’s marriage to Claudius- brings him to thoughts of suicide, which only subside as a result of it being a mortal and religious sin. The fact that he wants to take his own life demonstrates a weakness in his character; a sense of cowarness, his decision not to kill himself because of religious beliefs shows that this weakness is balanced with some sense of morality. Such an obvious paradox is only one example of the inner conflict and turmoil that will eventually lead to Hamlet’s downfall.
William Shakespeare's Hamlet is, at heart, a play about suicide. Though it is surrounded by a fairly standard revenge plot, the play's core is an intense psychodrama about a prince gone mad from the pressures of his station and his unrequited love for Ophelia. He longs for the ultimate release of killing himself - but why? In this respect, Hamlet is equivocal - he gives several different motives depending on the situation. But we learn to trust his soliloquies - his thoughts - more than his actions. In Hamlet's own speeches lie the indications for the methods we should use for its interpretation.