Hamlet by WIlliam Shakespeare

The ghost of Hamlet’s father influences Hamlet to seek revenge who would otherwise contemplate the subject to death, GHOST: Revenge his foul murder and most unnatural murder. HAMLET: Murder? GHOST: Murder is most foul, as in the best it is, / But this is most foul, strange and unnatural. HAMLET: Haste me to know’t; that I, with wings as swift / As meditation or the thoughts of love, may sweep to my revenge (I, v, 25-31). Notably, the ghost tells Hamlet to enact his revenge in the opening scenes of the play; he seems hesitant, as if he questions death for the first time.

This is also disturbing to Hamlet. John S. Wilks writes in J. Leeds Barroll's Shakespeare Studies how meeting the ghost of his father "...throws his conscience into doubt and error, must naturally begin with the malign source of that confusion, the Ghost" (119). Hamlet is also incensed when he learns the reason for his father's torture. Old Hamlet was murdered by his brother when he was sleeping. This leaves Old Hamlet walking in limbo for his afterlife.

Tragic death plays a really big role in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Hamlet often considers death in many different perspectives, and definitely obsesses with the idea more so after his fathers’ death. Hamlet’s soliloquy is one of the most famous in literature, “To be or not to be, that is the question…” Hamlet’s dilemma is the pain of life that he must endure or the uncertainty of death. From the beginning of the play to the very last scene, the fascination between life and death plays a role throughout. Hamlet is troubled through the play after realizing that his uncle was the one who murdered his father and is now married to his mother.

William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a tragic story that captures the audience’s emotions. The story wraps around the protagonist, Hamlet, whom finds out his father has been murdered by his uncle. Filled with hostility, Hamlet tries to organize a plan to seek his revenge. His hunger for vengeance only grows stronger as Hamlet experiences treachery, despair, sorrow, and animosity. The famous play by William Shakespeare portrays absolute and fabricated madness—from the overbearing grief to complete mania—and delves into the themes of sarcasm, suicide, and procrastination.

Hamlet's Obsession With Death In Hamlet, William Shakespeare presents the main character Hamlet as a man who is fixated on death. Shakespeare uses this obsession to explore both Hamlet's desire for revenge and his need for assurance. In the process, Shakespeare directs Hamlet to reflect on basic principles such as justice and truth by offering many examples of Hamlet's compulsive behavior; as thoughts of death are never far from his mind. It is apparent that Hamlet is haunted by his father's death. When Hamlet encounters the ghost of his father, their conversation raises all kinds of unthinkable questions, for example murder by a brother, unfaithful mother, that triggers Hamlet's obsession.

William Shakespeare's’ Hamlet tells the story of a great tragedy in which death is the permeating idea and connective thread. Through the experiences of Hamlet, Shakespeare is able to explore the complexities of life and death. Following the murder of his father, Hamlet seeks to avenge his death in the process of defining the meaning of his own life within himself. In the process of reaching complete madness, Hamlet contemplates his own death, experiences the death of those closest to him, and causes death. From these experiences, he further explores the concepts of mortality and the afterlife.

However, the ghost performs an important dramatic function that brings Hamlet motivation to find out the truth and to revenge. In “Death and the End of Testimony: Trauma Theory in Shakespeare’s Hamlet,” Lorna Mellon believes that “The primary motivator for much of the play’s action lies in the eerie scene where the ghost recalls Claudius’s rancorous actions against him and orders Hamlet to avenge his father’s murder by King Claudius”(118). For Hamlet to avenge his father’s murder, he must also become the

Hamlet’s decision to avenge his father is affected by social, psychological and religious influences. Once Hamlet has learned of his father’s death, he is faced with a difficult question: should he succumb to the social influence of avenging his father’s death? The Ghost tells Hamlet to “revenge his foul and most unnatural murder” (1.5.31) upon which Hamlet swears to “remember” (1.5.118). Hamlet’s immediate response to this command of avenging his father’s death is reluctance. Hamlet displays his reluctance by deciding to test the validity of what the Ghost has told him by setting up a “play something like the murder of (his) father’s” (2.2.624) for Claudius.

"According to the view which was originated by Goethe and is still the prevailing one today, Hamlet represents the type of man whose power of direct action is paralyzed by an excessive development of his intellect." (Sigmund Freud) The climax occurs when Hamlet finally takes revenge, but unlike it is for Fortinbras, Hamlet's revenge comes with great cost to all. His previous inability to act and take revenge sooner cause, ironically, the death of both his mother (who drank the poison destined for Hamlet) and the woman he loved Ophelia (who most likely committed suicide because of Hamlet's murder of her father Polonius).

Hamlet has an enormous amount of stress placed on him by the events of his father’s death and his mother’s hasty marriage. Hamlet’s mentality is further stressed by his father’s appearance in the form of a ghost telling Hamlet the true cause of his death, “The serpent that did sting thy father’s life now wears his crown” (Shakespeare 1.5.38-39), and more importantly telling Hamlet to avenge his death and to never forget him (1.5). This must weigh heavily on Hamlet’s mind as he tries to bring himself to carry out such a corrupt act. As Javed describes Hamlet’s ordeal as, “having taken on unwillingly the task of the revenge whose narrower function may have been to avenge a wronged kinsman, but whose wider one was to purge from society the evil which it could not otherwise escape” (332.) The corruption of Hamlet’s character is tragic because as Polonius says: “the safety and health of [the] whole state” depends on him (Shakespeare 1.3.20).