"’Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, / nor customary suits of solemn black / [ . . . ] but I have that within which passeth show; / these but the trappings and the suits of woe” (Shakespeare 1.2.76-73, 85-86) says Hamlet when confronted about his way of grieving over his father’s recent death. Shakespeare’s play Hamlet is a remarkable tale that is centered on the idea of death and grief. While death is a universal occurrence, meaning every person will deal with it, how we grieve after a loss is completely individual. To look at a formula of grief, most turn to the five stages of grief developed by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, a psychiatrist, who studied the topic in her book On Death and Dying. This model consists of denial, anger, sadness, bargaining, and acceptance, although the duration and order of the stages are different for every person. In Shakespeare’s play Hamlet the stages of grief are evident in his sadness, anger, and finally acceptance.
Sadness is the first emotion that is usually related to death. In the play, Hamlet does not try to disguise his sorrow after his father’s murder. This sadness is intermingled with disgust for the others around him who moved on with their grief and criticized him for continuing to mourn. After being criticized by Gertrude and Claudius, Hamlet chooses to talk to open space to reveal his feelings (1.2.129-158). Hamlet clearly shows the sadness in his heart, as well as the idea of bitterness. He continually attacks his mother’s quick grieving: “O God, a beast that wants discourse of reason / would have mourned longer” (1.2.150-151). This sadness continues in his fake madness, seeping into conversations that show his need for escape. In a confrontation with Polonius, Hamlet ends the con...
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...assing on his vote for Fortinbras and requesting that his story be passed on by Horatio (5.2.349, 356-357). This desire to move on shows the acceptance of Hamlet’s faith, and the final stage of the Kubler-Ross model.
Throughout Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, the characters clearly describe the grief they are experiencing through their poetic lines. Using the Kubler-Ross model, the audience can dissect the grief process to better understand Hamlet’s intentions. In the play, Hamlet experiences strong emotions concerning grief, including his examples of depression, anger, and finally, acceptance. The play shows that while the model was created in 1969, the essence of grief has never changed over the years.
Works Cited
Kübler-Ross, Elisabeth. On Death and Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy and Their Own Families. London: Routledge, 2009. Print.
There is no right or wrong way to grieve (Huffman, 2012, p.183), it is a melancholy ordeal, but a necessary one (Johnson, 2007). In the following: the five stages of grief, the symptoms of grief, coping with grief, and unusual customs of mourning with particular emphasis on mourning at its most extravagant, during the Victorian era, will all be discussed in this essay (Smith, 2014). In 1969 Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, a psychiatrist, published the Pioneering book
From past experiences in ones life, whether it be the death of a long aged gold fish to a deceased elder, one knows the pain and suffering that goes on afterwards. For one to finally move on and continue life without a tear in their eyes may take a while, yet having that immense step means to put the emotions aside and live life. Hamlet's father was murdered, and he soon sees his mother move on so quickly and marries his uncle, to continue being the queen. Hamlet's love for his father does not fade away within a two month span like his mother; he refuses to accept the fact that his father was killed, instead of a natural death. Because of this, Hamlet does not know what to do with his life. He mentions "O, that this too too sallied flesh would melt,/ Or that the Everlasting had not fixed/ His canon `against self-slaughter" (129-132). Immediately does Hamlet questions the existence of his own life, as he feels the need to melt and disappear, ultimately referring to suicide. The problem we face...
Hamlet throughout the play lives in a world of mourning. This bereavement route he experiences can be related to Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s theory on this process. The death of Hamlet’s spirit can be traced through depression, denial and isolation, bargaining, anger, and acceptance. The natural sorrow and anger of Hamlet’s multiple griefs include all human frailty in their protest and sympathy and touch upon the deepest synapses of grief in our own lives, not only for those who have died, but for those, like ourselves, who are still alive. Hamlet’s experience of grief, and his recovery from it, is one it which we ourselves respond most deeply.
Though Hamlet does not appear to love many people in this play, his feelings for his father shine true. In Act I. Scene ii, while Horatio and Hamlet were speaking of Hamlet’s father, Hamlet said, “He was a man, take him for all in all: I shall not look upon his like again.” (Act I. Scene ii.191-193.). This quote shows the affection that Hamlet has for his father by saying that no one can ever take his place, or compare to him. It shows how highly he thinks of his father and how much he meant to him. When Hamlet’s father appears as a ghost and speaks to Hamlet. He tells Hamlet of how he was murdered by his own brother. He tells him of how he was taking a nap under a tree in the orchid when Claudius put a drop of poison in his ear, with no defense or chance of a fair fight for his life his father died. After knowing this story from his father, Hamlet promised to avenge his father’s death by killing his own uncle. Most people would not kill another person for any reason, what so ever, and for him to avenge his father’s death is an act of dedication and love. Throughout the entire play, Hamlet dedicates his time to finding ways to avenge his father’s death. That shows love because Hamlet is...
Although death is a major part of life, accepting it can be a difficult thing to do. Dr. Elizabeth Kubler - Ross, an American psychiatrist and psychologist, help discover the series of stages people go through before the reach their death point. These series of stages were known as the Kubler - Ross model. This model was formed by a study on many patients from hospice, the hospice workers and the hospice patients families. These five stages include the feeling of Denial, Ange...
Any great king must be compassionate, and Hamlet is the embodiment of compassion. He shows this through his great sadness after his father’s death. Unlike many others in the play, Hamlet continues to mourn long after his father’s death. In fact, he never stops thinking of his father, even though his mother rushed into a marriage with Claudius a mere two months after her husband’s funeral. Also, Hamlet shows the reader his compassion through
Many sources on grief declare it to be something that must be faced or it will never go away. Ophelia never faces her grief, but it does go away when she drowns herself. She resorts to singing to solve her problems, while Laertes takes to violence. He believes he will feel relief once Hamlet is dead. Hamlet, on the otherhand, grieves for his father and does not take action for some time. He also has strong feelings on how his mother should take a longer time to grieve for her former husband. These three characters endure the same sort of grief at times, but choose toreact differently. There is no right or wrong way to grieve, but as many of the characters in Hamlet discover, grief can overtake one’s life and lead to downfall.
In the beginning of Hamlet, the Prince behaves as any normal person would following the death of a loved one. Not only is this a loved one, but an extra special someone; it is his loving father whom he adored. Hamlet is grief stricken, depressed, and even angry that his mother remarried so soon after his father’s death. Having witnessed how his father had treated his mother with great love and respect, Hamlet cannot understand how his mother could shorten the grieving period so greatly to marry someone like Uncle Claudius. He is incapable of rationalizing her deeds and he is obsessed by her actions.
In conclusion, Shakespeare shows throughout the play Hamlet, that when people try to cope with a lack of control created by the loss of an authoritative parent, they harm, and eventually destroy themselves. Through the lives of character’s Ophelia, Hamlet and Laertes, this truth is revealed, as they respectively lose their mind, damage those around them, and their plans retaliate against themselves because they did not cope in healthy ways. When undergoing times of trial and testing, positive ways to cope involve doing so with close friends, accepting the facts, and moving on with life at a pace that is neither to concentrated in the past, nor the future.
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.
Hamlet dealt with trauma when it came to dealing with the death of his one and only father also known as King Hamlet. Hamlet was also deeply devastated that Claudius, his uncle, married his mother. Hamlet was devastated, and full of grief by his father’s death and his behavior showed it. At the beginning of the play, Hamlet came out crying full of grief as he appeared alone on stage in front of the audience. "Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt / Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!” (Act 1, scene 2) Hamlet respected his father very much knowing that he was good to his people and was overall a good king. In the play, Hamlet’s behavior and grief became more serious because it came to the point where he felt like no one cared about his father’s death, and it seemed as if he was the only one grieving from the tragedy. A
“In Memoriam A. H. H.,” a large collection of poems written by Alfred Lord Tennyson, is an extended expression of the poet's grief for the loss of his beloved friend Arthur Hallam. The poem takes the speaker on a journey that describes an individual’s struggle through the stages of grief. In 1969, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross first proposed five stages of grief which include denial, anger, bargaining, depression and finally acceptance in her book titled, “On Death and Dying.” Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s universal stages of grief are expressed in Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem “In Memoriam A. H. H.” During the first stage, denial, the individual develops feelings of futility and defeat.
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...
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 psychological aspect of Hamlet which is most prominently displayed is his melancholy. This condition is rooted in the psyche and the emotions, the former causing the latter to go awry. Lily B. Campbell in “Grief That Leads to Tragedy” emphasizes ...