Hamlet is changed by his father’s death. Internally he struggles with his wish to die, ending his suffering, and his desire for revenge. Between Act I and Act II Hamlet changes from a hopeless soul to a man ready to take action. By the end of Act II Hamlet has an intense moment of inner struggle ending in his entrance into reality as he is driven by extreme loyalty for his father. His inner battle finally resolved, Hamlet decides to depart from cowardice and step forward bravely to avenge his father’s death.
In Act I Hamlet primarily is reacting to his father’s death, suffering alone in his isolated world of grief. Hamlet expresses his wish to die, to end the “weary, stale, flat, unprofitable” life he is trapped in (I.ii.132).Around him the court is celebrating the new marriage of the Queen and Hamlet sees “an unweeded garden, that grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature” (I.ii.136). All is not right in Hamlet’s world. There is a sense of and something sickening, emphasizing the motif of disease. Hamlet feels betrayed by his uncle and his mother as his father is quickly forg...
Death, Decay and Disease in Hamlet Within ‘Hamlet’, Shakespeare makes a number of references to Denmark's degraded state due to the deceit that lies within. These references are made by Hamlet, Horatio as well as the apparition, thus enforcing the strong theme of death, decay and disease. As aforementioned, Hamlets makes a number of references to Denmark. Preceding the death of his father and the marriage of his mother, his mental state begins to fall into demise. Although he appears to not have much courage at first, his focus remains on avenging his father, whose murder is described as being "most foul." As noted in one of Hamlet's first soliloquies, his downward spiral has already begun and already he is contemplating suicide; "O that this too too sullied flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew (I, II, 130)" and "seems to me all the uses of this world.
... Hamlet is merely a young man, looking for revenge for the death of his father. A young man that has gone through hell and back since his fathers death, losing his love, his mother marrying another man, best friends betraying him, all of which finally lead to his demise. Hamlet shows that he understands real from fake, right from wrong and his enemies from his friends.
Hamlet is a character that we love to read about and analyze. His character is so realistic, and he is so romantic and idealistic that it is hard not to like him. He is the typical young scholar facing the harsh reality of the real world. In this play, Hamlet has come to a time in his life where he has to see things as they really are. Hamlet is an initiation story. Mordecai Marcus states "some initiations take their protagonists across a threshold of maturity and understanding but leave them enmeshed in a struggle for certainty"(234). And this is what happens to Hamlet.
The three main turning points of Hamlet all revolve around Hamlet seeking revenge for his father’s murder. The three scenes depict Hamlet’s growth of character from a hesitant philosopher to a rash man of action. In the players’ scene, Hamlet takes extra care in confirming the authenticity of the ghost’s story, while deeply debating the morality of killing Claudius. In the prayer scene, Hamlet remains indefinite in the decision of taking vengeance for his father, as he neglects his best opportunity to end Claudius’ life. Hamlet makes a drastic change of character in the closet scene when he kills who he thinks is Claudius without hesitation. This shows he is now ready to take action for his father. However, it is Polonius behind the curtain, and his death sets off a chain of unexpected events that alters the plot and characters of Hamlet.
Hamlet, a young prince preparing to become King of Denmark, cannot understand or cope with the catastrophes in his life. After his father dies, Hamlet is filled with confusion. However, when his father's ghost appears, the ghost explains that his brother, Hamlet's Uncle Claudius, murdered him. In awe of the supposed truth, Hamlet decides he must seek revenge and kill his uncle. This becomes his goal and sole purpose in life. However, it is more awkward for Hamlet because his uncle has now become his stepfather. He is in shock by his mother's hurried remarriage and is very confused and hurt by these circumstances. Along with these familial dysfunctions, Hamlet's love life is diminishing. It is an "emotional overload" for Hamlet (Fallon 40). The encounter with the ghost also understandably causes Hamlet great distress. From then on, his behavior is extremely out of context (Fallon 39). In Hamlet's first scene of the play, he does not like his mother's remarriage and even mentions his loss of interest in l...
In Act 1, Hamlet has expressed admirable dignity through his choice of words. He is first introduced as a loyal son to his deceased father, “I have that within which passes show, these but the trappings and the suits of woe” (lines 288-9). Hamlet is the last to mourn, while everyone around him appears to be moving on with their lives. In lines 354 through 361 of Scene 2, Hamlet expresses disgust towards his mother and uncle’s immorality by saying “a beast that wants discourse of reason would have mourned longer… oh most wicked speed, to post with such dexterity to incestuous sheets”. Although he despises his mother and uncle’s marriage, he continues to be respectful to his mother, “I shall in all my best obey you, madam… It is not, nor it cannot come to good. But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue” (line 323 & 362-3). Continuing in the different scenes of Act 1, Hamlet continues to prove his nobility by disapproving excessive drinking in line 644.
One single moment or event during the course of an individual’s life can effectively alter their priorities and transform their identity drastically. In The play Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, Shakespeare introduces the readers to the protagonist Hamlet who is draped in anger and emotions and has a new-found mission in life. Initially, Hamlet is portrayed as an individual in mourning over his father's death and his mother's haste in remarrying to her brother-in-law and Hamlet's uncle, Claudius. However, Hamlet’s character and personality were drastically altered after meeting the Ghost and discovering the true nature of his Father’s death. Hamlet is now a man with a lust for revenge and a willingness to do anything that will enable him to accomplish this goal. When burdened with the task of killing Claudius, Hamlet chooses to sacrifice all he holds dear by transforming his identity in a noble effort to avenge his father’s death.
In Hamlet, the protagonist Hamlet faced many dilemmas that led to his transformation throughout the play. The people around him and the ghost of his father dramatically affect him. Seeing his father’s ghost had changed his fate and the person he had become. The path he chose after his encounter with his father’s ghost led to his death.
Hamlet is Shakespeare’s most famous work of tragedy. Throughout the play the title character, Hamlet, tends to seek revenge for his father’s death. Shakespeare achieved his work in Hamlet through his brilliant depiction of the hero’s struggle with two opposing forces that hunt Hamlet throughout the play: moral integrity and the need to avenge his father’s murder. When Hamlet sets his mind to revenge his fathers’ death, he is faced with many challenges that delay him from committing murder to his uncle Claudius, who killed Hamlets’ father, the former king. During this delay, he harms others with his actions by acting irrationally, threatening Gertrude, his mother, and by killing Polonius which led into the madness and death of Ophelia. Hamlet ends up deceiving everyone around him, and also himself, by putting on a mask of insanity. In spite of the fact that Hamlet attempts to act morally in order to kill his uncle, he delays his revenge of his fathers’ death, harming others by his irritating actions. Despite Hamlets’ decisive character, he comes to a point where he realizes his tragic limits.
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’s attachment to his mother is quickly made evident within the first act of the famous tragedy. Hamlet, who sulks around wearing black clothing to mourn the death of his father, first speaks in the play to insult his stepfather. He voices his distaste at his new relationship with his uncle by criticizing that they are, “A little more than kin and less than kind” (I.ii.65). He believes that it...
Hamlet’s mourning about the death of his father and the remarriage of his mother drives him to madness. This is the main characters inner tragedy that Shakespeare expresses in the play. First he considers suicide but the ghost of King Hamlet sends him on a different path, directing him to revenge his death. Shakespeare uses Hamlet to articulate his thoughts about life, death and revenge. Being a moral character he must decide if revenge is the right thing to do. Shakespeare relays many scenarios of reasoning to the audience about mankind His hero sets the wrongs on mankind right again.
As the play’s tragic hero, Hamlet exhibits a combination of good and bad traits. A complex character, he displays a variety of characteristics throughout the play’s development. When he is first introduced in Act I- Scene 2, one sees Hamlet as a sensitive young prince who is mourning the death of his father, the King. In addition, his mother’s immediate marriage to his uncle has left him in even greater despair. Mixed in with this immense sense of grief, are obvious feelings of anger and frustration. The combination of these emotions leaves one feeling sympathetic to Hamlet; he becomes a very “human” character. One sees from the very beginning that he is a very complex and conflicted man, and that his tragedy has already begun.
Up until this point the kingdom of Denmark believed that old Hamlet had died of natural causes. As it was custom, prince Hamlet sought to avenge his father’s death. This leads Hamlet, the main character into a state of internal conflict as he agonises over what action and when to take it as to avenge his father’s death. Shakespeare’s play presents the reader with various forms of conflict which plague his characters. He explores these conflicts through the use of soliloquies, recurring motifs, structure and mirror plotting.
Like all Shakespearean tragedies, Hamlet’s ending is no different in end-result. Hamlet’s separation from society and his self-imposed confusion caused by over-thinking results in the unnecessary deaths of most of the major characters. In turn, Hamlet’s pre-occupation with factors inessential to his mission of revenge slows down his action. It is this internal struggle that illustrates the intensity and complexity of Shakespeare’s revenge tragedy, something that is often looked at from a psychological perspective.