Hamlet is full of death. The whole plot revolves around the death of King Hamlet, and death is what drives the play forward. Hamlet is surrounded by death and struggles with dealing with it. Before the tragic ending Hamlet loses his father to murder and his love to crazed suicide, along with murdering Polonius himself. Shakespeare uses Hamlet’s questioning of his own mortality and fear of death to connect with the human problem: that if we all die what is the point of living?
The opening scenes of the play show an interaction between Hamlet and the ghost of his recently murdered father, King Hamlet. Hamlet’s father reveals to him that he was in fact murdered and that he must avenge his death. The ghost does not implicitly say that Hamlet must
Hamlet considers it as it is a way to escape the pain and struggles of life especially after the suicide of Ophelia. Ophelia is driven mad throughout the play until she eventually cannot handle it anymore and ends her own life. Suicide at this time in England was considered illegal and one of the worst acts that could be committed as it was against the Bible in a very religious country. If one was successful in their suicide attempt they would be considered a disgrace and condemned to hell along with being buried outside of the city limits. Yet again Hamlet was surrounded with the death of someone he cared about and he showed this by creating a scene at her funeral. Hamlet states upon realizing it is Ophelia who has taken her own life: “I lov 'd Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers Could not (with all their quantity of love) Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her? (Ham.5.1.3613-3615). Hamlet is again jolted by the roller coaster of his feelings about mortality, death and in this case suicide. Suicide was a complicated issue at the time as it was considered illegal and how it affected people’s view of Ophelia. Michael MacDonald talks about this in another Shakespeare Quarterly article where he states: “My narrow purpose is to show that contemporary attitudes to suicide were more ambivalent and mortuary customs more uncertain.” (MacDonald 309). MacDonald is providing the argument that suicide
Hamlet has completed his task given to him by his ghostly father and Hamlet can die with something his father did not: Peace. Hamlet is at peace with his death as he was able to complete what he was tasked to accomplish. Hamlet will live on through his story. Along with this everyone he has known or loved, besides poor Horatio, has already passed and gone on to the unknown of the afterlife. So, Hamlet is at peace with his early death and has finally stopped worrying about the ambiguity of the death and how to deal with mortality. Throughout the play has struggled heavily with the idea of mortality and if we all die does it really matter what we do in this life or when we die. Harvey Birenbaum provides the argument that by the last few scenes of the play Hamlet has begun to come to terms with his destiny and has begun to accept his mortality and likely death as he states: “The third part, from our Act IV, Scene vi, consists of Hamlet’s return and the culmination of his destiny. His state is now the poise of integrated strength: “the readiness is all.”” (Birenbaum 20) Hamlet has essentially come to terms here with mortality and death bringing him peace, which is what everyone is trying to aim for in the end even if it is
When Hamlet Senior dies Hamlet seems lost. Depression commonly follows a loved one’s death. He finds no true meaning in life. He wonders if we are only here to eat and sleep.
In act 3, Hamlet questions the unbearable pain of life and views death through the metaphor of sleep. "To be or not to be: that is the question: / whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer / the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles / and, by opposing end them. To die, to sleep / no more" (3.1.64-68), details which bring up new thoughts about what happens in the after life. Thus, Hamlet contemplates suicide, but his lacking knowledge about what awaits him in the afterworld causes him to question what death will bring. For example he states, "The undiscovered country, from whose bourn / no traveler returns, puzzles the will / and makes us rather bear those ills we have / than fly to others that we know not of" (3.1.87-90), again revealing his growing concern with "Truth" and his need for certainty. Once again, death appears in act 4 with the suicide of Ophelia, the demand for Hamlet's execution and the gravedigger scene. All of these situations tie back with how death is all around Hamlet and feeds his obsession with it. Finally in act 5, Hamlet meets his own death, as his obsession to know leads to the death of himself.
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.
Death threads its way through the entirety of Hamlet, from the opening scene’s confrontation with a dead man’s ghost to the blood bath of the final scene, which occurs as a result of the disruption of the natural order of Denmark. Hamlet is a man with suicidal tendencies which goes against his Christian beliefs as he is focused on the past rather than the future, which causes him to fall into the trap of inaction on his path of revenge. Hamlet’s moral dilemma stems from the ghost’s appearance as “a spirit of health or a goblin damned”, making Hamlet decide whether it brings with...
To begin with, Hamlet starts off his speech asking, “Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer/ The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune/ Or to take arms against a sea of troubles/ And by opposing end them” (Shakespeare 3.1.57-60). He wonders if he would be more noble if he took his own life and end his sorrows than if he continued to endure him. This question shows the pain and grief that Hamlet has experienced since the death of his father. According to Ophelia, later in Act 3 Scene 1, she reveals that Hamlet was once the obvious successor to the throne since he was charismatic and admired by the people. Clearly, in this part of the play, he is suicidal, and he is uncertain about many of the big decisions in his life. This extreme change in Hamlet’s behaviors makes the audience worry about Hamlet’s mental health. Is his feigned madness transforming into true insanity? However, his comparison to death and sleep suggests that Hamlet is in a state of reflection and learning. Hamlet’s analogy between death and sleep is the musings of an ordinary man who wonders what happens to a soul once its body dies. Just as no one knows what dreams they will experience when they lay in bed, no knows what they will experience when their body is finally laid in a grave.
After a death, we find ways of overcoming grief in this painful world. Some people binge eat their way out while others find the easy way out, which is suicide.In the play Hamlet, Shakespeare portrays mortality in the image of death and suicide.Shakespeare develops hamlet as a man who is sensitive and uncontrolled by his actions. Hamlet faces challenges that mess with his subconscious making him feel vulnerable to making decisions that will affect his life.We can say that Hamlet was very indecisive of living or not. He showed many signs of suicidal thoughts. Many can argue and say that Hamlet was depressed. Coming back home from school to attend his father's funeral in Denmark made him discover many things, such as, his mother Gertrude remarried to Hamlet's uncle Claudius who is the dead king's brother. To Hamlet he finds it loathsome for his
Since now Hamlet has been arrogant about the idea that death can not touch him however death is ever looming overhead. Until now “No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither, with modesty enough and likelihood to lead it, as thus: Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is earth; of earth we make loam; and why of that loam, whereto he was converted might they not stop a beer barrel? Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay, Might stop a hole to keep the wind away. O, that that earth which kept the world in awe Should patch a wall t ' expel the winter 's flaw!”(5.1.214-223) Hamlet finally has figured out that religion has nothing to do with death. Even though religion is thought to effect death it does not since each man will face it no matter what religion. He explains that faith can not change the fact that he will die. He names great Kings that have turned into dust to help make his point even stronger that he will become the same that in the end we all become dust and are blown away with the wind. All of a sudden Hamlet is himself facing death. His last line of the play is “The rest is silence.”(5.2.343) He has finally met his end and even though he has never been a religious man he has still died. He says it’s silent to show that nothing can be said for the next life that may or may not be. Religion has no meaning when it come to death because, it comes
The basis of one 's mortality and the complications of life and death are talked about from the opening of Hamlet. In the mist of his father 's death, Hamlet is having a hard time not thinking about and considering the meaning of life and how life ends. Many questions emerge as the story progresses. There was so many question that Hamlet contemplated. He was constantly worrying that is he revenged on his fathers’ death then what would happen. He would ask himself questions like, what happens when and how you die? Do kings go to heaven? If I kill, will I go to heaven?
This encounter is essential to the plot, in that it provides for Hamlet's return from England and sets the stage for Hamlet's discovery of Ophelia's death. It brings Hamlet from the state in which he was able to easily arrange for the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to one in which he can feel deep sorrow at the loss of Ophelia. It further grants him a better perspective on the nature of death and on his own fate. Its sharp focus on death further serves to prepare the audience for the conclusion of the play. Up to this point, Hamlet has been an active agent in trying to fulfill his destiny as prescribed by his father's ghost. His actions were disorganized and his goal continually foiled. For example, his attempt to control the situation renders him incapable of killing Claudius when he is at prayer, since Hamlet wishes to manipulate the circumstances of Claudius' death so that he is "about some act that has no relish in't" (III, iv, 91-2). The lesson of the graveyard is that death is inevitable, not contrived. Having learned this lesson, Hamlet is a more passive agent of his own fate and the plot resolves itself. The ...
In the play Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, the protagonist, Hamlet is obsessed with the idea of death, and during the course of the play he contemplates death from numerous perspectives. He ponders the physical aspects of death, as seen with Yoricks's skull, his father's ghost, as well as the dead bodies in the cemetery. Hamlet also contemplates the spiritual aspects of the afterlife with his various soliloquies. Emotionally Hamlet is attached to death with the passing of his father and his lover Ophelia. Death surrounds Hamlet, and forces him to consider death from various points of view.
Hamlet’s belief in what happens after you die first came about after his father’s ghost tells him about his experience with dying before repenting of your sins. In act 1 scene 5, the ghost of Hamlet’s father says,
“So shall you hear of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts, of accidental judgements, casual slaughters, of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause”, (Hamlet, Act V, Scene 2, Lines 381-384). Horatio, best friend of Prince Hamlet, says this in the final lines of the play. He says this after Gertrude, Queen of Denmark, Hamlet, Claudius, King of Denmark, and Laertes, son of Polonius all die in the battle between Hamlet and Laertes. Hamlet, King of Denmark, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, former friends of Hamlet, Polonius, councillor to the King, and Ophelia, daughter of Polonius are also dead. Death is a very important theme in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
Hamlet appears to be a rather philosophical character. He is skeptical and expresses views that nowadays can be described as existential and relativist, but those terms did not exist in Shakespeare’s time. Existentialism analyzes existence and the way humans appear to exist in this world. It is concerned with the individual; finding oneself and finding a meaning to life by one’s own measures.That is exactly what Hamlet is going through. Presented with the jarring conflict of avenging his father’s death, Hamlet finds his meaning to life shortly before dying himself among others tangled in this mess. He was tasked by the ghost of his father to kill Claudius in an act of vengeance, which would be considered noble (though in this case, it is a regicide avenging a regicide; treason for treason). The ideals of society demand that he...
In his tragedy Hamlet, William Shakespeare explores and analyzes the concept of mortality and the inevitability of death through the development of Hamlet’s understanding and ideology regarding the purpose for living. Through Hamlet’s obsessive fascination in understanding the purpose for living and whether death is the answer, Shakespeare analyzes and interprets the meaning of different elements of mortality and death: The pain death causes to others, the fading of evidence of existence through death, and the reason for living. While due to the inevitable and unsolvable mystery of the uncertainty of death, as no being will ever empirically experience death and be able to tell the tale, Shakespeare offers an answer to the reason for living through an analysis of Hamlet’s development in understanding death.
In conclusion suicide is used all throughout Shakespeare’s works. Suicide is actually used an unlucky thirteen times in some of his most popular plays. In Hamlet suicide is an issue of controversy and question. Hamlet is a confused man from everything that he has experienced in such a short period of time. And even though Hamlet contemplates suicide he is not the one who suffers from it. Ophelia is actually is the victim of the actual act of suicide. His morality, religion, and philosophical views on suicide keep him from committing the dreaded act. Even though suicide still goes on today and the questioning of the issue, it has been like this for a very long time.