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Element of tragedy in hamlet
insight into hamlet's characters
elements of tragedy of hamlet
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In today’s modern society, hardly people go around killing other people just to get back revenge, but in the novel, “Hamlet”, written by William Shakespeare, it is a constant thing to go around stabbing people to avenge someone else’s death. This book is all about tragedy, because there are so many deaths that happened at the end of the story. . There are many different schemes in “Hamlet”, for example, Prince Hamlet to King Claudius and King Claudius against Prince Hamlet; these two schemes also contain the same similarities with one another.
The first scheme in the book, “Hamlet”, is Prince Hamlet to King Claudius to revenge his father’s death and to find out if Claudius is guilty; to prove that Hamlet uses a play to testify his theory.
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Claudius found out that Hamlet knew he had murdered his father and is plotting against him, so now Claudius is coming up with ideas to end his life in the most low profile way as possible. Claudius does want people to know that he is trying to purposely kill Prince Hamlet, because the people of Denmark love him and Claudius does not want them to turn against him. The King’s first plan was to send Hamlet to England and have Rosencrantz and Guildenstern destroy him, but quickly failed when Hamlet was captured by pirates just to be let free and is now returning back to Denmark. The second idea was to have a poisoned sword cut him making Hamlet die instantly and if that did not work, then the third idea was to offer him a poisonous drink for a sudden death. “‘When in your motion you are hot and dry’ ‘(As make your bouts more violent to that end)’ ‘And that he calls for drink, I’ll have prepared him”’ (Shakespeare, pg 233, lines 179-183). The second plan was to have, Laertes fence with Hamlet and stab him with the poisoned sword. If that failed, then Claudius was going to give Hamlet a poisonous drink when he would get dehydrated from fencing and would need a beverage. All of Claudius’s plans backfired on him, even though Hamlet had been cut by the poisoned sword he still managed to stab Laertes also with the poison sword. Hamlet’s mother, Queen Gertrude, drank the poisoned cup and warned …show more content…
“‘The point envenomed too! Then, venom, to thy work’ ‘Drink off this potion”’ (Shakespeare, pg 281, lines 352-357). In the first scheme, Prince Hamlet was trying to kill King Claudius due to the King murdering Hamlet’s deceased father and the outcome was a success, because Prince Hamlet actually did proceed with the actions of murdering King Claudius; slashing him across his neck with the poisoned sword and forcing him to drink the poisoned cup. “‘My lord, I’ll hit him now’ ‘Have at you now!’ ‘Laertes wounds Hamlet’” (Shakespeare, pg 279, lines 322-331). Also, in the second scheme, King Claudius was plotting to execute Prince Hamlet, because Hamlet found out about Claudius killing his father and have been planning to revenge the late King Hamlet; the outcome was Hamlet slowly dies from a poisonous cut soon leading to his final breath. Finally, these two schemes consist of the same similarities, because they share the same motivation and outcome, which is killing for the motivation and death for the
Prince Hamlet, a university student, is an extremely philosophical and thoughtful character. When his father the King of Denmark dies, Hamlet returns home only to be presented with evidence that suggests his uncle Claudius may have been responsible for his father’s murder. In the initial acts of the tragedy, Hamlet seeks to prove his uncle’s guilt and contemplates all of his actions and options, prior to seeking revenge.
The first way that deceit leads to the eventual downfall of Hamlet is Polonius' spying. In Act III, scene iii, Polonius decides to help the king by spying on Hamlet and his mother when he says, "My lord, [the king] he's going to his mothers closet. Behind the arras I'll convey myself to hear the process." (III; iii; 28 - 29) In Act III, scene iv, Polonius gets his chance and listens to a conversation between Hamlet and his mother, hoping that Hamlet would confide something in his mother that could be used against him. Unfortunately for Polonius, Hamlet hears him behind the curtain, and (thinking that Polonius is actually a spying King Claudius) immediately stabs and kills him. This event contributes to Hamlet's downfall because Claudius is able to use it as an excuse to send Hamlet away to England. Officially, the king sends Hamlet away, "for thine especial safety," (IV; iii; 37) with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern because the murder might earn him some enemies. Privately though, Claudius plans to have Rosencrantz and Guildenstern go with Hamlet to convey a message to the King of England that Hamlet is to be executed. In addition, by sending Hamlet away, Claudius is protecting himself because Hamlet is, "loved of the distracted multitude [the public]." (IV; iii; 4) So, if Hamlet were to show the people that Claudius had killed Hamlet's father, then they might believe him, and as a result, overthrow and kill Claudius. Thus, the downfall is that Claudius wants Hamlet dead. In addition, if Claudius' plan works, then Hamlet dies and his father’s death would not be avenged. So, if Polonius had not spied on Hamlet and Gertrude, Hamlet would not have killed Polonius and thus, Claudius would not have a good enough excuse to send Hamlet away to England.
Both men plot, and kill, but before acting they take a great deal of time to think about their actions. Hamlet likes to set up and get everything right before acting on his suspicions or ideas. He thinks about how his actions will affect everyone and this is because of the substantial amount of common sense he has. Before killing Claudius, he came up with a plan to take him down and exploit him for killing his father. He knows that he cannot just kill him right away because people will be confused and blame Hamlet, so he plans to crack him first. He puts on a play portraying a young man poisoning his uncle, which riles Claudius because he poisoned Hamlet’s father. By putting on the play Hamlet alerted Claudius about how much he knew which scared Claudius. Hamlet goes on to a more elaborate plan to act “mad” which instills much fear into Claudius because he thinks Hamlet now poses as a threat to him which is what Hamlet wants. Claudius’ reaction to Hamlet’s madness is shown when he...
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.
There are many plots and schemes throughout Hamlet but one that is very obvious is found in Act I, Scene 5 of the play. Hamlet seeks revenge for his father's death,he decides these actions after visiting his father's ghost.When Hamlet sees the ghost of his father, the ghost describes something very shocking to Hamlet. The ghost reveals how his Father was actually murdered, hew as murdered by his own Uncle, Claudius. Hamlet also finds out from the ghost that he should seek revenge on Claudius. Hamlet believes that's exactly what he should do, therefore sets out to seek revenge. In Act 2, scene 2 Hamlet analyzes Claudius's reaction to the the tale of Pyrrhus and Priam, which is when his fathers murder is revealed on stage for everyone attending
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.
Ambition is the desire for power, honor, fame, wealth and the will to do anything to obtain them. Claudius is full of ambition and commits nefarious acts against his own family to gain power. In Act one; Scene five, Hamlet has been blessed by the presence of his father’s ghost. King Hamlet, who is absolutely irate, tells Hamlet exactly how he died. Murdered, more specifically poisoned, by his brother in his sleep. Not only did Claudius murder him but he robbed him “Of life, of crown, of queen.” All of these are things he viciously snatched from King Hamlet to fulfill ambitious life style. Although in Denmark the people elect their king Claudius is of royal blood, he knows the ins and outs of governing a body of people, thus possibly the reason...
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.
In Hamlet Shakespeare is able to use revenge in an extremely skillful way that gives us such deep insight into the characters. It is an excellent play that truly shows the complexity of humans. You can see in Hamlet how the characters are willing to sacrifice t...
Throughout Hamlet, each character’s course of revenge surrounds them with corruption, obsession, and fatality. Shakespeare shows that revenge proves to be extremely problematic. Revenge causes corruption by changing an individual’s persona and nature. Obsession to revenge brings forth difficulties such as destroyed relationships. Finally, revenge can be the foundation to the ultimate sacrifice of fatality. Hamlet goes to show that revenge is never the correct route to follow, and it is always the route with a dead
As illustrated through his speeches and soliloquies Hamlet has the mind of a true thinker. Reinacting the death of his father in front of Claudius was in itself a wonderful idea. Although he may have conceived shcemes such as this, his mind was holding him back at the same time. His need to analyze and prove everythin certain drew his time of action farther and farther away. Hamlet continuously doubted himself and whether or not the action that he wanted to take was justifiable. The visit that Hamlet recieves from his dead father makes the reader think that it is Hamlet's time to go and seek revenge. This is notthe case. Hamlet does seem eager to try and take the life of Claudius in the name of his father, but before he can do so he has a notion, what if that was not my father, but an evil apparition sending me on the wrong path? This shows that even with substantial evidence of Claudius' deeds, Hamlet's mind is not content.
Hamlet contains three plots of revenge throughout the five acts of the play. Young Hamlet, after getting a shocking realization from his father’s ghost, wants to enact a plot of revenge against his uncle. Laertes, who was struck twice in quick succession by the death of his father and sister, wants to kill Hamlet. Away in Norway, Fortinbras wants to take revenge on the entire nation of Denmark for taking his father’s land and life. These three sons all want the same thing, vengeance, but they go about it in wildly different ways, but as Lillian wilds points out, “he also sees himself in the mirrors of Fortinbras [and] Laertes.”(153) It becomes clear that the parallels presented throughout the play are there to further illuminate the flaws of
Hamlet is one of Shakespeare’s most well-known tragedies. At first glance, it holds all of the common occurrences in a revenge tragedy which include plotting, ghosts, and madness, but its complexity as a story far transcends its functionality as a revenge tragedy. Revenge tragedies are often closely tied to the real or feigned madness in the play. Hamlet is such a complex revenge tragedy because there truly is a question about the sanity of the main character Prince Hamlet. Interestingly enough, this deepens the psychology of his character and affects the way that the revenge tragedy takes place. An evaluation of Hamlet’s actions and words over the course of the play can be determined to see that his ‘outsider’ outlook on society, coupled with his innate tendency to over-think his actions, leads to an unfocused mission of vengeance that brings about not only his own death, but also the unnecessary deaths of nearly all of the other main characters in the revenge tragedy.
In the tragedy of Hamlet Shakespeare does not concern himself with the question whether blood-revenge is justified or not; it is raised only once and very late by the protagonist (v,ii,63-70) and never seriously considered. The dramatic and psychological situation rather than the moral issue is what seems to have attracted Shakespeare, and he chose to develop it, in spite of the hard-to-digest and at times a little obscure, elements it might involve [. . .] . (118-19)