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. Therefore, Hamlet acts with more rationale in the play than he is given credit for.
An excellent counter-argument: Hamlet, in theory, is a protestant play, but Hamlet (despite his studies at Wittenberg) seems to conform to catholic ideology when he interacts with the ghost of his father and when trying to decide whether to kill Claudius or not. He doesn’t even follow his own educational background, and he lacks substantive justification for wanting to kill anyone based on what his protestant background should lead him to believe about the on-goings of the play. He demonstrates his conformation to catholic practices through his acceptance of the fact that his father has returned to earth as an apparition from purgatory, and by refusing to kill Claudius whilst he is praying for fear of sending him to heaven. This would be an acute observation of Hamlet’s background as a character, but I disagree with the notion that Hamlet is intrinsically catholic despite his obvious religious background.
What does Protestantism ever demonstrate ...
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...ath, specifically when it comes to suicide? It is arguable that Hamlet’s withdrawn and unclear outlook on suicide can be attributed to an internal struggle stemming from the on-goings in the play that directly challenge his fundamental beliefs.
This internal struggle should say a lot to the reader about how they should interpret Hamlet’s behavior. Why call a man inherently bad or inherently insane when everything his higher education has led him to understand is being deeply challenged? Why even give a moment of consideration to the opinion of Claudius who is a known murderer? He arguably serves as the root of every problem that Hamlet faces in the play. Hamlet is, perhaps, simply misunderstood, and if a reader does not bear in mind what he undergoes emotionally and psychologically in the play, his behavior and actions may easily be mistaken for inherent insanity.
William Shakespeare was a Stratford Grammar School boy, who was a member of the Church of England, similar to just about everyone else in Stratford. However, due to some events that occurred in the Shakespeare family home, there is some evidence that could prove that the family may have had some Roman Catholic connections. When William Shakespeare was 10 years old, legal issues and debt took a toll on his family’s life. Shakespeare’s father’s stopped attending alderman meetings which resulted in
time of mourning for a lost loved one? In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Hamlets mother, Gertrude, mourned the passing of her husband for less than two months. She then decided to marry King Hamlet's brother, Claudius. Hamlets mother's new marriage is what bothers him the most. Hamlet believes Claudius will never live up to the legacy left by his father as the King of Denmark. The social context that is being revealed to the reader through Hamlets soliloquy describes three character traits
The expression “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” is never taken literally in the modern day, as it only exaggerates the idea of payback or karma, but this saying took a whole new meaning in the famous tragic-revenge play of Hamlet, written by William Shakespeare in 1601.What is so appealing about this masterpiece, to audiences of many decades, is the fact that revenge plays a rather large role throughout the play, motivating not only characters but developing an extensive plot. Revenge is
something that ruined a relationship, lying or hiding the truth is a universal theme that everyone could relate to. In Hamlet, William Shakespeare uses the theme of deception to develop characters and cause their ultimate downfall in the play. Deception is not only woven in the plot but also portrays through the characters’ action and personality, such as Claudius, Polonius, and Hamlet. The play’s main conflict starts with King Claudius’ lie. At the beginning of the play, Claudius had become the new
“Hamlet is of the faction that is wronged;/ His madness is poor Hamlet’s enemy.” In the William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, Hamlet struggles internally throughout. After his father, Hamlet, is killed by his uncle, Claudius, Hamlet looks to seek revenge. Claudius is now king, and married to young Hamlet’s mother, Queen Gertrude and now holds power over the kingdom. In his plot to kill Claudius to avenge his father, Hamlet takes on insanity as part of the act. While pretending his insanity, he mistakenly
When in the course of human events, something’s are made self-evident, like having to read Hamlet and write about three soliloquies. These soliloquies tend to be very lengthy and have very sub surface meanings to them that require some enabled humanoids to use the frontal cortex of their neurological brains in order to understand these meanings. In other words, they are hard to understand, especially with them being written in the Shakespearean era of influence in the island Kingdoms that are Untied
William Shakespeare's Hamlet is most certainly a tragedy of tragedies. In this masterful piece of literature Shakespeare heaps calamity upon calamity on the stories main protagonist, Hamlet. Not only to Hamlet do these saddening things happen but also to most of the other characters of the story. The tragic nature of this story can obviously be seen in many ways. The main aspects of this work which reveal its nature would be the death of those close to the main character, the hero's tragic flaw
Hamlet is one of the greatest plays written in history by William Shakespeare. It is a tragedy that tells the story of prince Hamlet who seeks revenge for his father's murder. At the start of the play, Hamlet is melancholic and tries desperate to control his fate however, as the play progresses, Hamlet becomes rational and accepts his fate. Shakespeare's powerful use of dark symbols throughout the play illusatrate the inevitability of death as it is a universal component of life. Hamlet's clothing
individual character has their own way to fight for the power they seek. Hamlet, Claudius, and King Hamlet are the ones who seek it the most in the play. Hamlet wants and feels the need to avenge his father, Claudius fights to keep the thrown away from Hamlet and to keep the truth from spilling out, and King Hamlet seeks out his sons help to take vengeance on his brother Claudius for his death. Although Claudius and King Hamlet do not become mad with power the fight for power make them corrupt and
throughout William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet in numerous ways. Throughout the play, Hamlet’s struggle to follow his moral values and beliefs is evident. Hamlet can be viewed as a strong character with good intentions but had fallen vulnerable for his need to avenge his father’s death, King Hamlet. Seeking vengeance for king Hamlets death is viewed as dishonorable under the eyes of God but shows that Hamlet is as susceptible to sin as any other character in the play. Therefore, Hamlets character is
In the play ‘Hamlet’ by William Shakespeare, Claudius kills his brother (King Hamlet, former king of Denmark) by murdering him in order to take his position. Cladius’s brother is the father of Hamlet (Prince of Denmark). Cladius is the villain of the play; he is extremely evil-minded. Although a lot of the time he does not show it. This comes under a very important theme of Shakespeare’s plays: appearance and reality. In every play of Shakespeare, there is always a character
The complexity and effect of father-son relationships seems to be a theme that Shakespeare loved to explore in his writings. In Hamlet, the subject is used as a mechanism to identify the similarities between three very different characters: Fortinbras, Laertes, and Hamlet. They have each lost their fathers to violent deaths, which leads them to seek vengeance. As different as they may seem, they all share the common desire to avenge their father’s deaths. The method they each approach this is what
self-loathing? Hamlet by Shakespeare is considered to one the most tragic plays ever written. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, has one of the worst mothers. She knowingly marries her husband’s murderer, Claudius, Hamlet’s uncle. In one of the most convoluted plots in literature, Hamlet is on a mission to avenge his father’s murder, punish Gertrude, and rid himself of Ophelia, whom he has driven to madness. In the end, Hamlet’s intense need for revenge is his ultimate downfall. Even though Hamlet seems to be
While a revenge tragedy by definition, William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, is first and foremost a play concerning memory. The importance and effect of memory and the ars memoria could not be stressed more. Memory, remembrance, or, in some cases the lack there of, frame much of the dialog throughout the work and are therefore unmistakable themes of the play. In Act one, scene five, the ghost of old king Hamlet uses memory as a call to arms, “Mark me…Remember me,” he commands his astonished son (1. 5. 2
In William Shakespeare's Hamlet, although Hamlet is the prince of Denmark, he has little control over the situation of his mother country. His father is dead and his mother marries his uncle, Claudius, who succeeds his father. When Hamlet is still in grief, the ghost of his father comes to tell him that he was killed by Claudius. Young Hamlet, being called to take vengeance, is confined to the land of Denmark and fails to act. Throughout the play, Hamlet feels increasingly trapped by the confinement