A simple pendulum hangs in equilibrium until it is raised by an external force; this movement is perpetuated under gravity until another force ceases its movement. However, if another pendulum is added, a compound pendulum is crafted. One which is defined by its chaotic motion highly sensitive to its initial conditions. Equally, enclosed within William Shakespeare’s Hamlet lies one of the greatest entanglements of literature. Yet, it is still questioned whether a play submerged in ambiguity can be abridged to an encompassing single word and still express Hamlet’s absoluteness and amplitude. It is within the multitude of interpretations and ideations surrounding Hamlet a pattern can be found. Within Hamlet’s excessive engagement with philosophical …show more content…
Hamlet’s brain forms a pendulum constantly swinging back and forth, Shakespeare's adept scholarly characterisation plagues Hamlet with a deep conflict, torn between the demands of his emotions and the inherit skepticism of his mind; two extremes of himself. His diction littered with binary opposites at his introduction, “A little more than kin, and less than kind.”(Act 1 Scene 1) showcases his inability to weigh towards one side despite the emotional conflict and resentment, he needs to counterbalance. Even when contemplating the very existence of his “too too solid flesh” Shakespeare employs synecdoche amplifying Hamlet’s profound melancholia as not only his flesh but he wholey “would melt / Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!” (Act 1 Scene 2). The immediate juxtaposition referring to the “Everlasting” highlights the duality of life and death as his physical and mental presence seeps into the spiritual. Everything …show more content…
In this sense couldn’t Hamlet’s mind be compared to a pendulum of perpetual motion? We see his masterful antic disposition fool and his conscious switch between sanity or feigned insanity. The nature of his predisposed path becomes apparent with the weight of his father passing and mother swiftly advancing on. The crafting of an explicitly cold reply in addressing his mother “madam” distances himself , “I shall in all my best obey you”(Act 1, Scene 2) poses an implicit testimony to the responsibility he feels towards his late father. However, his intrinsic grief and act of madness becomes blurred as he is hypnotised with seeking out information. Introspective meta-theatrical models framework this seeking out, Shakespeare highlighting the power of theater and acting. Hamlet’s melancholy seeps in through Shakespeare’s motif of comparison between the player and Hamlet. Deepening Hamlet’s agitated state; the exclamation “For Hecuba!”(Act 2, Scene 2) consciously breaking tempo of the iambic pentameter by the heavy cesura. Hamlet acts out the extremities “between feigned and actual madness and between rational and mad suicide, distinctions that the culture was gradually establishing” as Carol Neely explored. This actual madness is within Hamlet's melancholy as it was known as such in the Elizabethan era. Shakespeare utilises Claudius’ insightful and cautious characterisation to recognise this
As Hamlet transforms from a motivated intellectual to an obsessed griever, Shakespeare evaluates the fluidity of sanity.The juxtaposition of Hamlet’s desire to act and inability to do so unveils Hamlet’s inner turmoil, for as Hamlet disconnects from family, distrusts his environment, and forms an obsession with perfection, the audience realizes his fatal flaw and watches him tumble into the grasps of insanity. This degeneration forces the audience to consider how equilibrium between thought and action influences the conservation of sanity, not only for Hamlet, but also for all of humanity.
Manning, John. "Symbola and Emblemata in Hamlet." New Essays on Hamlet. Ed. Mark Thornton Burnett and John Manning. New York: AMS Press, 1994. 11-18.
Much of the dramatic action of Shakespeare’s tragedy, Hamlet is within the head of the main character, Hamlet. His wordplay represents the amazing, contradictory, unsettled, mocking, nature of his mind, as it is torn by disappointment and positive love, as Hamlet seeks both acceptance and punishment, action and stillness, and wishes for consummation and annihilation. He can be abruptly silent or vicious; he is capable of wild laughter and tears, and also polite badinage.
William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is laden with tragedy from the start, and this adversity is reflected in the title character. Being informed of his father’s murder and the appalling circumstances surrounding the crime, Hamlet is given the emotionally taxing task of avenging his death. It is clear that having to complete this grim undertaking takes its toll on Hamlet emotionally. Beginning as a seemingly contemplative and sensitive character, we observe Hamlet grow increasingly depressed and deranged as the play wears on. Hamlet is so determined to make his father proud that he allows the job on hand to completely consume him. We realize that Hamlet has a tendency to mull and ponder excessively, which causes the notorious delays of action throughout the play. It is often during these periods of deep thought and reflection that we hear one of Hamlet’s famous soliloquies, which are obviously relative to Hamlet’s apprehensions and worries surrounding his current situation. The seven soliloquies throughout the play offer insight pertaining to the deteriorating mental state of Hamlet, and the circumstances which induce his decent into madness.
In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Hamlet the king of Denmark is murdered by his brother, Claudius, and as a ghost tells his son, Hamlet the prince of Denmark, to avenge him by killing his brother. The price Hamlet does agree to his late father’s wishes, and undertakes the responsibility of killing his uncle, Claudius. However even after swearing to his late father, and former king that he would avenge him; Hamlet for the bulk of the play takes almost no action against Claudius. Prince Hamlet in nature is a man of thought throughout the entirety of the play; even while playing mad that is obvious, and although this does seem to keep him alive, it is that same trait that also keeps him from fulfilling his father’s wish for vengeance
...tal murder of polonious and his decision to have his friends Rozencrantz and Guildenstern murdered for conspiring against him also contributed to Hamlet's mental instability. Moreover, the death of his beloved Ophelia and his mother Gertrude lead to Hamlet's decision to commit suicide.. Each of this events had some pshychological impact on Hamlet and ultimately contributed to Hamlet's insanity and his death. Therefore, even thought Hamlet had not been insane at the beginning of the play he gradually became insane due to the dramatic events that occurred to him and how he dealth with them.
The Elizabethan play The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark is one of William Shakespeare's most popular works. One of the possible reasons for this play's popularity is the way Shakespeare uses the character Hamlet to exemplify the complex workings of the human mind. The approach taken by Shakespeare in Hamlet has generated countless different interpretations of meaning, but it is through Hamlet's struggle to confront his internal dilemma, deciding when to revenge his fathers death, that the reader becomes aware of one of the more common interpretations in Hamlet; the idea that Shakespeare is attempting to comment on the influence that one's state of mind can have on the decisions they make in life.
Considered to be one of the most famous playwrights written in the history of English literature, Hamlet is no doubt a complex play and far from being easy to decipher. The protagonist finds himself entangled within a slew of different predicaments ranging from love, incest, death, murder, and even touches upon the spiritual world when his father’s apparition presents himself with the task of avenging his death. How he goes about handling all of these difficulties has been a debate for decades and continues to baffle even the greatest minds today. However, in order for Hamlet to uncover the truth and fulfill the task he is given, he must put on an act of madness in which the other characters mistake him to have truly lost his mind. While he
As a young man, Hamlet's mind is full of many questions about the events that occur during his complicated life. This leads to the next two categories of his mind. His need to seek the truth and his lack of confidence in his own impulses. Hamlets’ confusion in what he wants to ...
...l of the audience, exposing our inner anxieties of emotional seclusion. To summarize, Claudius, Horatio and Hamlet play the far extents of human behaviors, exemplifying intense emotion and drawing insight into human nature.
In Hamlet’s speech, Shakespeare’s efforts to target his Elizabethan audience develop the theme of the frailty of man. Shakespeare conveys this underlying theme of the play by subt...
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.
As illustrated through his speeches and soliloquies Hamlet has the mind of a true thinker. Reinacting the death of his father in front of Claudius was in itself a wonderful idea. Although he may have conceived shcemes such as this, his mind was holding him back at the same time. His need to analyze and prove everythin certain drew his time of action farther and farther away. Hamlet continuously doubted himself and whether or not the action that he wanted to take was justifiable. The visit that Hamlet recieves from his dead father makes the reader think that it is Hamlet's time to go and seek revenge. This is notthe case. Hamlet does seem eager to try and take the life of Claudius in the name of his father, but before he can do so he has a notion, what if that was not my father, but an evil apparition sending me on the wrong path? This shows that even with substantial evidence of Claudius' deeds, Hamlet's mind is not content.
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.