Hamlet: Emotions of Despair, Sadness, Anger, and Inner Peace

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Hamlet: Emotions of Despair, Sadness, Anger, and Inner Peace

The character of Prince Hamlet, in Shakespeare's "Hamlet," displays

many strong yet justified emotions. For instance, in Hamlet's "To be Or Not

To Be" soliloquy, perhaps one of the most well known quotes in the English

language, Hamlet actually debates suicide. His despair, sorrow, anger and

inner peace are all justifiable emotions for this troubled character.

Hamlet's feeling of despair towards his life and to the world

develops as the play moves on. In Hamlet's first soliloquy he reveals that

his despair has driven him to thoughts of suicide; "How weary (horrible) …

His law 'gainst self slaughter." Likewise, when Hamlet talks to his friends,

Rosenerantz and Guildenstern in Act 2 scene 2, Hamlet wishes they tell the

King and Queen that he has "lost all mirth," in this world so "foul and

pestilent." In his "To be or not to be" soliloquy, he expresses his despair

through thoughts of suicide, suggesting that suicide is an easy way to end

life's conflicts. But luckily he concludes that the fear of an unknown

afterlife is what keeps us living. All of Hamlet's thoughts of despair can

be understood when one looks at the horrible conflicts Hamlet goes through.

Sorrow, perhaps the most evident emotion, is very well developed

throughout the play. Initially, the only cause of Hamlet's sorrow is his

father's death. However, after reading Act 1, scene 2, we see in Hamlet's

asides that another source of his melancholy is his mother's hasty marriage

to Claudius, the new king of Denmark. Further, when Queen Gertrude asks her

son why his father's death "seems" so important, he replies, "Seems, madam?

Nay it is. I know not 'seems'." In addition, Shakespeare reveals another

source of sadness; now Hamlet is alone, with the most loved character in

his life, Ophelia, rejecting him. This cause is well brought out in

Hamlet's soliloquy in which he states; "Now I am alone. O, what a rouge and

peasant slave am I!" Finally, when Hamlet discovers that Ophelia has died,

new reasons for Hamlet's extreme feelings of sorrow are added. In fact, his

sorrow is so great that "Forty thousand brothers/Could not (with all their

quantity of love) Make up my sum." Thus, Hamlet's well developed sadness,

is reasonable throughout the play. Unfortunately, Hamlet's thoughts of

mourning are replaced by those of anger.

Most readers of Hamlet agree, to some extent or another, that

Hamlet is well justified in expressing anger. Perhaps the first incident of

Hamlet's true expression of anger is during his scene with the ghost in Act

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