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Critical analysis of hamlet's madness
The character of hamlet
The character of hamlet
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William Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, is a tragic piece of modern literature consisting of numerous deaths. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Fortinbras, Prince of Norway, and Laertes, son of Polonius all consist of a vengeance that make up a key role of their development. All three men seek revenge for the murder of their fathers. In the beginning of the play, revenge is sought throughout the first act as Fortinbras seeks vengeance after King Hamlet defeated his father in the battle to conquer more land. As the play progresses more deaths take place. King Hamlet later dies of a supposedly snake bite while sitting in his orchard. Hamlet loses his sanity after he learns about his father’s death, and acts out with rage and kills Polonius while talking …show more content…
No later after he finds out his beloved father has fallen, Horatio and Marcellus bring word to Hamlet that they have seen the ghost of the king. “Been thus encountered: a figure like your father, armed at point exactly, cap-a-pie” […] (2. 209-210). Hamlet pushes for Horatio and Marcellus to advise him further of what they have seen of his dear father. After Hamlet learns of the place where his father’s ghost was found he rushes off to catch even a small indication of his deceased King. The ghost of King Hamlet appeared before Prince Hamlet’s very eyes. Hamlet was at loss of words, he couldn’t believe his father was standing before him. It was then when the ghost spoke these words that Hamlet began to lose his sanity. “Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard, a serpent stung me, […] The serpent that did sting thy father’s life now wears his crown” (5. 43-47). The words rang in Hamlet’s ears. His uncle, the man his mother had just married, his father’s brother had killed King Hamlet. The world no longer made sense to the Prince. He couldn’t help but lose his sanity; his uncle had killed his father. Hamlet planned his revenge against his uncle. He wrote a play that all of Denmark would see, and that maybe the new King would see just how much Hamlet knew of his …show more content…
He’s mentioned in the beginning when he warns Ophelia to stay away from her lover Prince Hamlet and when he and Hamlet fought to the death at the end of the play. However, before Laertes and Hamlet’s encounter, Laertes was informed that Hamlet had killed his father Polonius. After that was known, the son of Polonius and Hamlet’s uncle planned to kill Hamlet by foul play, an eye for an eye. They planned to poison the tip of Laertes’s sword so if Hamlet were to get cut he would die shortly after, however, they had a backup plan and it was poisoning Hamlet’s drink. Laertes does not handle the news of his father’s death wisely. Killing Hamlet in foul play could only ask for disaster, and so it did. Laertes dies at the end of the play when his and Hamlet’s sword gets swopped, thus Hamlet killing Laertes with his own
Vengeance, redemption, and desire plague Denmark’s royal family in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet after a haunting family secret forces Prince Hamlet to choose between morality and honor. After Hamlet’s father dies, the kingdom hastily adjusts to his uncle Claudius’ reign; however, Hamlet remains devastated and loyal to his father. When his father’s ghost unveils that Claudius poisoned King Hamlet, the prince’s devastation mixes with a fervent desire for revenge that eventually dictates his every thought. Despite being ostensibly committed to avenging his father’s death, Hamlet habitually discovers reasons to delay action. As Hamlet’s procrastination persists, his familial relations deteriorate and ultimately cause him to reevaluate his position in society. Furthermore, Hamlet becomes chronically paranoid and calculates each aspect of his plan; therefore, the audience doubts his ability to successfully exact revenge. This paranoia escalates exponentially and fuels an uncontrollable obsession with perfection that usurps his sanity. Although Hamlet remains devoted to his murdered father, his perpetual procrastination eventually leads to mental degeneration through decaying relationships, prompting incessant paranoia, and fostering uncontrollable obsessions.
Hamlet, one of the most complex and dramatic characters to ever cross the theater is known as the crestfallen prince that enraptures the audience with his elegant intensity throughout the concord of acts. The intricate and profound life of Hamlet is by far Shakespeare’s most popular and powerful piece he ever created. The story begins on a dark winter night on the ramparts of the Elsinore Castle in Denmark when a ghost appears, who resembled the deceased King Hamlet. Claudius overthrew the throne by murdering King Hamlet and marrying his brother’s wife Gertrude. The apparition later spoke to Hamlet and showed his son that his Uncle Claudius had murdered him by slipping poisoning through his ear and declared that Hamlet must avenge his death. A group of actors traveling through Denmark reenact the murder of his father. Hamlet has been acting as though he has gone mad and goes to speak with his mother later that night to confront her with her sins of incest that she has committed which leads to the death of the eavesdropping snoop Polonius. In the aftermath of Polonius’s death, Ophelia goes mad with grief and sorrow and commits suicide by drowning herself in the river. Hamlet is told to leave the country and boldly aborts a mission set up by Claudius for him to be killed upon arrival in England. A sword fight breaks out amongst the men which later lead to the death of the entire royal family. At this moment Fortinbras, the Prince of Norway, sees the family lying on floor dead and decides to take power over the kingdom for himself.
Shakespeare’s vast utilization of plot devices allow the story to develop in a riveting manner. The presence of vengeance as one of these plot devices appears consistently throughout the play, representing the deceitful, suspicious nature of the characters. The tragedy is built on the festering wounds of broken families and vengeful sons. Through the irrational behavior of these characters, Shakespeare foreshadows what can only be a dismal ending. Nearly all the characters die to avenge the life of another, tossing their lives away to obsessive and needlessly bloody deaths. These incredible usages of thematic imagery truly support Hamlet as one of the greatest independent pieces of classic literature, and in many ways explains how the text has survived the test of time.
William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a classic tragedy style play set in Denmark during the middle ages. The story depicts a young prince Hamlet, who returns home to Denmark in order to attend his father’s funeral, where he is shockingly surprised at what he finds out. His mother, Gertrude, has already been remarried to a man named Claudius and he has been named king despite Hamlet’s right to the throne. Hamlet’s father comes to him as a ghost and confirms his suspicions in regards to King Hamlet being poisoned by Claudius. Prince Hamlet is asked to avenge his father and set everything straight so the King can pass on peacefully, but the Prince is unsure if the ghost is genuine. In order to set things straight, Hamlet puts on a play he calls, The Mousetrap, in order to sniff out some answers and ultimately lead him to aspire to kill Claudius. As a result, Hamlet gets Polonius, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, Ophelia, and Laertes all killed in the process of his quest. In the final part of the play, Hamlet kills Laertes with his own poisonous sword, and then kills Claudius, shortly before he himself dies of poison.
Similar to Hamlet, Fortinbras wants to avenge his father, who dies on the battlefield (Shakespeare 26). However, Fortinbras acts decisively. The loss of both his father and this territory angers him. Fueled by this infuriation, he takes matters into his own hands and devises an immediate plan to seek vengeance. There is no extended, thoughtful planning like Hamlet. Instead, Fortinbras decides to attack Denmark until his uncle reprimands him, then he goes “against some part of Poland” (Shakespeare 220). An admiration filled with a personal shame arises inside Hamlet since he knows of “the imminent death of twenty thousand men that, for a fantasy and trick of fame …” (Shakespeare 222). Soldiers are going to die for a tiny plot of land, while Hamlet suffers from the inability to courageously seek revenge. His motives are just, yet he has simply done nothing about them. These two aforementioned instances are perceived to be acts of bravado because Fortinbras utilizes action over mere thoughts, which are commendable within this society. By the end of Act 5, Fortinbras arrives to witness the aftermath of all this misfortune. Though he does not leave empty-handed, instead he ends up with a claim over Denmark. Shakespeare shows how this ambition and promptness concerning his revenge is highly regarded by society. Yet Fortinbras is simply a minor character, who
Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” is a story about revenge, murder, and insanity, which leads to the untimely deaths of many characters within the play. As Hamlet seeks revenge from the murderer of his father, the story unravels into a wave of conflict and play on of words; all the while getting ever closer to the truth behind Hamlets fathers death. Hamlet a son of a murdered father strays from his obligations though, and causes more trouble than what its worth to the ones he loves, just to keep his mind at ease; this leads to the rebirth of old characters and how they see him, some being left in sorrow and hatred over his impetuous actions. It’s a really remarkable play, and to see all these sons seeking revenge for there fathers really speaks about the human tendency to overlook key things; if you are the cause of such hatred what hate can be created because of that, this is what ultimately Shakespeare is trying to show us through “Hamlet” and to show it in such a way is a perfect example of this.
In William Shakespeare 's play, Hamlet, after Hamlet’s father is murdered with poison by his brother Claudius, the contagion of vengeful actions begins to plague the people in the kingdom. Hamlet Sr. and his death are symbolic of the kingdom as a whole. Once he is poisoned the evil deeds of King Claudius begin to spread throughout Elsinore. Hamlet puts on an antic disposition and decides to seek retribution after speaking with his father’s ghost, and uncovering the truth about his death. The tainting of Hamlet’s mind and his need to seek revenge against his uncle ultimately leads to Hamlet’s insanity and demise towards the resolution of the play. Everyone in the kingdom becomes delusional and angry, and Shakespeare uses
The classic tragedy Hamlet, written by William Shakespeare, tells the story of a vengeful nephew dealing with a fratricidal uncle. The play concludes with the majority of the main characters dead. The deaths of these characters are all consequences of their respective flaws. The flaws of Polonius and his two children conspicuously allow for their untimely deaths
In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, the theme of revenge is very palpable as the reader examines the characters of Hamlet himself, as well as Laertes, son of Polonius, and Fortinbras, prince of Norway and son of the late King Fortinbras. Each of these young characters felt the need to avenge the deaths of their fathers who they felt were untimely killed at the bloody hands of their murderers. However, the way each chose to go about this varies greatly and gives insight into their characters and how they progress throughout the play.
William Shakespeare’s Hamlet revolves around Hamlet’s quest to avenge his father’s murder. Claudius’ first speech as King at the beginning of Scene 2, Act 1 introduces the themes of hierarchy, incest and appearance versus reality and plays the crucial role of revealing Claudius’ character as part of the exposition. The audience is left skeptical after Horatio’s questioning of King Hamlet’s ghost in the first scene of the play. By placing Claudius’ pompous speech immediately after the frightening appearance of Hamlet’s ghost, Shakespeare contrasts the mournful atmosphere in Denmark to the fanfare at the palace and makes a statement about Claudius’ hypocrisy. Through diction, doubling and figurative language, Shakespeare reveals Claudius to be a self centered, hypocritical, manipulative and commanding politician.
... time where a power change occurred. At the end, since Claudius, Laertes, Gertrude, and Hamlet die, Fortinbras is chosen as the king. Fortinbras completes his promise that he will regain the land that his dad had lost.
Throughout Shakespeare’s play, revenge intertwines to bring about the deaths of most of the main characters. Hamlet’s course of revenge initiates the first fatality when Polonius gets caught spying on him and Gertrude (III. iv. 24-25). By pursuing revenge, Hamlet killing Polonius paves the way for more lives to be lost. Claudius sees the murder as an opportunity to eliminate Hamlet, because Laertes’s obsession with revenge leaves him vulnerable. Laertes’s and Hamlet’s revenge lead to the deaths of Gertrude, Laertes, Claudius, and finally Hamlet (V. ii. 287-357). The revenge of each character ironically ended their own life. By acting upon revenge and having inimical intentions, the individuals brought fatalities that were unnecessary.
Taking revenge against his enemy can be a difficult task for young Hamlet, especially when the circumstances and conditions he is under require him to reevaluate his morals of life and soul. The delay in Hamlet’s revenge of his father’s death is caused by three main reasons: he is under strict and almost impossible guidelines laid out by the ghost of his father, King Hamlet, he is afraid of death either suffering it or inflicting it on someone else, and his lack of reasoning in committing a murder that he did not witness himself.
In Hamlet Prince of Denmark young Hamlet is left facing the outcomes of the conflict his father had with his brother. Old Hamlet is dead, killed by his own brother for the thrown of Denmark. Young Hamlet is in deep morning over the loss of his father and now he has to handle the remarriage of his mother to his own uncle, the man who in cold blood killed his father. Hamlet, with the death of his father, is acting strangely but his whole outlook changes for the worst when his father's ghost visits him. He finds out the true causes of his death and he is influenced by his father to seek revenge. Hamlet's father tells his son to kill his uncle, Claudius because he is the cause of his death. Hamlet loved his father deeply and would do anything for him. He becomes enraged with anger and hate for Claudius and begins to plot his revenge, Claudius' own death. Throughout the play his father's ghost visits Hamlet. Even after his death he has a great control over his son and his actions. These visits are a constant reminder to Hamlet of the truth. Knowing the truth of his father's death has driven Hamlet to the brink of insanity. The only thing he can think of is revenge. His father's death and prior conflict with his brother has left Hamlet in a position of honoring his father and doing right by him, and the only thing he sees fit to do is rid himself of the man that brought about the anger Hamlet is feeling. In the end Hamlet finally gets the revenge he sought with the death of Claudius.
Old Hamlet is killed by his brother Claudius. Only two months after her husband’s death a vulnerable Gertrude marries her husband’s brother Claudius. Gertrude’s weakness opens the door for Claudius to take the throne as the king of Denmark. Hamlet is outraged by this, he loses respect for his mother as he feels that she has rejected him and has taken no time to mourn her own husband’s death. One night old Hamlets ghost appears to prince Hamlet and tells him how he was poisoned by his own brother. 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.