In Hamlet's first soliloquy preceding his father's death, he tells the audience “O that this too, too solid flesh would melt. Or that the Everlasting had not fixed, His canon 'gainst self-slaughter!”(Act 1. Scene 2. lines 130-133) This gives us a brief preview of Hamlet's mental state in the beginning of the play. Hamlet is extremely depressed and admits that but says it would be a sin to kill himself. Hamlet goes on to describe the world as "weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable" and compares it to an "unweeded garden” (Act 1.
The death of his father and loss of contact with his lover begin driving him to insanity. We can say with some certainty that the ghost is real on its visit to Hamlet because others witness it, but after the death of Polonius, Hamlet is its only witness. By this point Hamlet must surely be insane. He has been brooding for so l... ... middle of paper ... ...he end of Act III). Although not every one of them might have come to killing Claudius, Hamlet seems not to do anything.
While reading Hamlet, I came to the conclusion that even though this is a tragedy, the hero's supposed flaw is not like those in classical tragedies. To the best of my knowledge, the flaw that I could pick out that best fit Hamlet was sloth . . . as well as the critics themselves.
William Shakespeare's Hamlet When first introduced to Hamlet he is a character full of pain and confusion, still mourning his father’s death, ‘But two months dead-nay, not so much, not two’. [1] The punctuation here highlights Hamlet’s anguish. Significantly, Hamlet is already portrayed as a misfit, as no one else within the court but Hamlet is wearing mourning clothes; in Shakespeare’s time it would have been worn for at least a year following the death of a king. This gives an immediate and striking indication of the character’s isolation, his alienation and the power Claudius has already obtained within the court. The rhythm of Hamlet’s words in first soliloquy ‘How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable’[2] conveys his weariness.
William Shakespeare's Hamlet A tragic play is one in which the protagonist dies through disaster evoked by a combination of personal faults and circumstances out with the character's control. Shakespeare's "Hamlet" is true to this genre, depicting a noble, but flawed, character that is subject to outrageous twists of fate ultimately leading to his demise. However, to what extent can Hamlet's downfall be attributed to his own failings? From the start of the play, the reader is shown a tormented Hamlet, mourning the loss of his father and insulted by his mother's hasty remarriage to his uncle. However, this sadness and disappointment quickly turns to wrath as the ghost of his father reveals to him that it was Hamlet's new stepfather who murdered him.
When one’s father is dead, their mother is sleeping with their uncle and they have a religious background through an education that is counterintuitive to just about everything that is happening in their life, they might face a struggle with the nature of their existence. Does this suggest insanity? Perhaps eventually, but every case of existential angst is circumstantial. In the case of Hamlet in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, there is a serious demonstration of the purely situational struggle with life, death and spirituality. Because Hamlet’s actions are influenced by events that his detractors are not aware of, such as the appearance of his father’s ghost, he is incorrectly associated with insanity.
His father did not just die, in fact he was murdered. The breaking point for Hamlet about his father’s murder was the fact that Claudius, his uncle and mother’s new ... ... middle of paper ... ...lord, he hath importuned me with love in honorable fashion…and hath given countenance to his speech, my lord, with almost all the holy vows of heaven” (I.iii.111-115). As Hamlet’s madness progresses and his actions and feelings towards Ophelia waver. He rejects Ophelia and tells her that he never loved her, but when he fights with Laertes in Ophelia’s grave, Hamlet states, “Forty thousand brothers could not, with all their quantity of love, make up my sum” (V.i.250-253). Due to his drastic changes in character Hamlet gives the reader the illusion allusion that he may have schizophrenia.
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.
Hamlet's agonized worrying over his state of existence begins before his first encounter with the ghost. He reports first to his mother that "These but the trappings and suits of woe" (I,ii) do not begin to illumine his inner heartbreak over the death of his father. But it is soon revealed in his first soliloquy that he despairs more over the hasty remarriage of Gertrude than the death of King Hamlet. "...a beast, that wants discourse of reason, / Would have mourn'd longer." (I,ii) Gertrude's apparent disregard of his honorable late father causes his suicidal dejection.When he hears from the ghost of his father's murder, he does indeed vow revenge.
“How weary stale, flat and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of the world “(page 31). This quote shows the attitude Hamlet uses towards life, he is saying that the world is stale, it has no taste left. Hamlet is showing his pessimistic side in him in this soliloquy. When the ghost of Hamlet’s father reveals to Hamlet who killed him, Hamlet becomes more complicating, he becomes furious. “…That one may smile and be a villain atleast I’m sure it may be so in Denmark” (page 69) in this soliloquy Hamlet shows his feelings towards Claudius, that Claudius is smiling to show that he is nice when he isn’t.