Lamenting Life's Losses

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Lamenting Life's Losses
A teen's first years entering adulthood shape how he or she will view life, death, and all of the complexities tangled within these two topics. Shakespeare's 'Hamlet' exemplifies this statement and also shows the drastic changes that can occur in a person's mindset when faced with tragedy. As the monumental events currently transgressing Hamlet's moral conscious drive him to murder Polonius, a distinctive, permanent change unfolds in Hamlet's temperament in regards to his motive for seeking vengeance, fear of eternal damnation if he murders his uncle, and the way he treats those around him. The most immediate of these changes takes place directly following Polonius's murder, as Hamlet confides in his mother.
Up until this point in the play, Hamlet has shown much hate and distrust towards his mother. Hamlet insults Queen Gertrude declaring her marriage "incestuous", saying that with, "wicked speed," she got over the death of her husband and, "post / With such dexterity to incestuous sheets" (1.2.160-61). Leading right up to Polonius's murder, Hamlet wishes, "(it [was] not so) [that] you are my mother" (3.4.21) saying that he would rather not be Gertrude's son at all. Then, as Hamlet thrusts his sword into Polonius, who hides himself "behind the arras", Gertrude becomes Hamlet's mother again and his newest confidant. Hamlet finally shares his feelings about Gertrude, "[living] / In the rank sweat of an enseamèd bed / . . . and making love / Over the nasty sty" (3.4.104-06). Also, the fact that Hamlet stabs Polonius and immediately asks, "Is it the King" should speak for itself in the ears of the Queen and the reader that Hamlet trusts her enough to not care whether she knows his intentions to kill Claudius or...

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...here is a / special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be / now, ’tis not to come; If it be not to come, it will be / now. If it be not now, yet it will come . . . Let be" (5.2.233-38). A fear of death no longer lingers in Hamlet's heart and he plans to face his fate. Making this change probably the most noble and practical change in Hamlet as a character.
As Hamlet's life comes to a climax at the murder of Polonius, exponentially honorable and terrible changes take place. These involuntary changes occur in Hamlet's heart and he has little to no control over them. But these changes define him as the noble, princely man he becomes throughout the course of a play full of betrayal and corruption. Hamlet allows his soul to feel the emotion and drama raging around him and, as these things enact severe change upon him, he grows up and becomes a better man for it.

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