Hamlet has long-been associated with the name of William Shakespeare as a masterful work of literary art. It is one of the most debated, celebrated and studied pieces of all time; a marvel of showmanship from one of the most famous authors to ever pick up the elegant pen of words. Those who have read the drama often marvel at the complexity of Hamlet himself, and debate his hesitancy of action throughout the tragedy-namely, the supposed murder of Claudius which he ‘must’ commit. While many scholars agree on Hamlet’s reasons for delay, critics have yet to narrow their thoughts on Hamlet’s overlying motive: why does behave the way he does? More importantly, what were Shakespeare’s motives in portraying Hamlet the way he ultimately does? Hamlet’s hesitation is not the most convoluted and interesting of the subjects; his rationale of purpose is what drives the entire work to be the complex enigma that it still is, to this day. To begin with, many scholars have suggested that Hamlet’s motives directly correlate to Shakespeare’s own life and experiences. With such an intricate work of literature, it is easily assumed that "anything which will give us the key to the inner meaning of Hamlet will necessarily provide a clue to much of the deeper workings of Shakespeare’s mind" (Jones 25). While this may be true, one cannot necessarily assume that unlocking Hamlet’s motives and frame of mind will bring us closer to William Shakespeare, as a person and personality. Rather, it is safe to say that in exploring Hamlet’s intentions, one can find insight into the mentality of Shakespeare; the ideas which he molded into the character of Hamlet, in order to build the persona which he used to explore the subject of revenge. Like with many great works, a reader cannot always assume that the main character is modeled after the author who penned it. This is a biased way to look at literature, and often detracts from the piece as a whole. One should only take that the ideas portrayed in the work are those that stemmed from the writer’s mind, and therefore links the dramatist with the piece, as in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In the exploration of Hamlet as a character removed from William Shakespeare himself, critics have often made numerous interpretations, based on their own findings through the unchanging words of Hamlet. As Bradby states: “Hamlet is a central figure of surpassing interest and genius, which has gripped the imagination of the learned and the unlearned in all ages and which will continue to fascinate so as the mind of man is haunted by the mystery of life and death” (Bradby 60).
The Elizabethan play The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark is one of William Shakespeare's most popular works. One of the possible reasons for this play's popularity is the way Shakespeare uses the character Hamlet to exemplify the complex workings of the human mind. The approach taken by Shakespeare in Hamlet has generated countless different interpretations of meaning, but it is through Hamlet's struggle to confront his internal dilemma, deciding when to revenge his fathers death, that the reader becomes aware of one of the more common interpretations in Hamlet; the idea that Shakespeare is attempting to comment on the influence that one's state of mind can have on the decisions they make in life.
Considered to be one of the most famous playwrights written in the history of English literature, Hamlet is no doubt a complex play and far from being easy to decipher. The protagonist finds himself entangled within a slew of different predicaments ranging from love, incest, death, murder, and even touches upon the spiritual world when his father’s apparition presents himself with the task of avenging his death. How he goes about handling all of these difficulties has been a debate for decades and continues to baffle even the greatest minds today. However, in order for Hamlet to uncover the truth and fulfill the task he is given, he must put on an act of madness in which the other characters mistake him to have truly lost his mind. While 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.
The main protagonist, Hamlet, undergoes a sequence of incidents that radically alter his character. When the audience is introduced Hamlet, he is clothed in all black—portrayed as a morose, dejected prince. The audience’s initial impression of Hamlet sets the attitude for the entire play. Even without Shakespeare delivering an intricate sketch of Hamlet's features, readers can visualize his pallid face, disheveled hair, and severe, ominous eyes. Clothed completely in black, Hamlet exhibits all the forms, moods and shapes of distress. Throughout the progression of the play however, it is exposed that Hamlet as a character has more than one side to him: he is as menacing as he is imprudent, and he is as unforgiving as he is inconclusive. The audience relates Hamlet’s internal troubles with the demise of his father, and the emotional tax of discovering the truth of his death but being incapable of extorting revenge. This is what principally transforms Hamlet. His struggle to suppress his anger towards King Claudius, his father’s murderer, is then transmitted onto Ophelia, which causes Hamlet to become a remarkably different character by the end of Act V. Revenge has a way of seizing a character’s integrity. Michael Price of the American Psychological Association wrote, “If you're a power seeker, revenge can serve to remind others you're not to be trifled with. If you live in a society where the rule of law i...
Hamlet is a scholar, speaker, actor, and prince. For some reason, Hamlet is not able to avenge his father's death without considerable delay. There is one major flaw in Hamlet's character which causes him to postpone the murder of Claudius. I believe that this flaw is Hamlet's idealism. While his idealism is a good trait, in this case, Hamlet's environment and his...
Hamlet’s mourning about the death of his father and the remarriage of his mother drives him to madness. This is the main characters inner tragedy that Shakespeare expresses in the play. First he considers suicide but the ghost of King Hamlet sends him on a different path, directing him to revenge his death. Shakespeare uses Hamlet to articulate his thoughts about life, death and revenge. Being a moral character he must decide if revenge is the right thing to do. Shakespeare relays many scenarios of reasoning to the audience about mankind His hero sets the wrongs on mankind right again.
As the play’s tragic hero, Hamlet exhibits a combination of good and bad traits. A complex character, he displays a variety of characteristics throughout the play’s development. When he is first introduced in Act I- Scene 2, one sees Hamlet as a sensitive young prince who is mourning the death of his father, the King. In addition, his mother’s immediate marriage to his uncle has left him in even greater despair. Mixed in with this immense sense of grief, are obvious feelings of anger and frustration. The combination of these emotions leaves one feeling sympathetic to Hamlet; he becomes a very “human” character. One sees from the very beginning that he is a very complex and conflicted man, and that his tragedy has already begun.
One of the most popular characters in Shakespearean literature, Hamlet endures difficult situations within the castle he lives in. The fatal death of his father, and urge for revenge leads Hamlet into making unreasonable decisions. In William Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, Hamlet’s sanity diminishes as the story progresses, impacting the people around him as well as the timing and outcome of his revenge against Claudius.
The revenge tragedy Hamlet, written by William Shakespeare, focuses on Hamlet’s internal struggles. Revenge tragedies are drama’s in which the dominant motive is revenge for a real or imagined injury. The Prince Of Denmark, Hamlet, is faced with the circumstances of his mother marrying his uncle only months after the death of his father. Hamlet even begins questioning his uncle Claudius’s part in his fathers death. These circumstances drive Hamlet to deliberate on whether or not to kill his uncle, since his fathers ghost visited Hamlet and claimed Claudius to be the killer. Unlike most protagonist in a revenge tragedy Hamlet is a man of intellect and does not take action as quickly as one would expect. Though Hamlet was suspicious of Claudius he takes his time to get to the truth. Hamlet faces internal struggles, conflict with characters, conflict with his morality, and character development. These make him
During the beginning of the 17th century, William Shakespeare wrote Hamlet. Today, four hundred years later in the 21st century, the intricacies and complexities of the play are still being examined and analyzed by readers around the world. One of the most discussed topics is Hamlet, the tragic hero and the loved Prince of Denmark. In scene 3, act 2, lines 395-396 Hamlet says to Guildenstern, “You would pluck out the heart of my mystery.” This is exactly what many readers and characters in the play are trying to do, determine who Hamlet is. His enigmatic aura is what draws us to his character. He is practical and emotional, thoughtful and impulsive, and insane and intelligent all at the same time; his character itself is enigmatic and Shakespeare shows us this with every one of Hamlet’s actions.
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.
The perfection of Hamlet’s character has been called in question - perhaps by those who do not understand it. The character of Hamlet stands by itself. It is not a character marked by strength of will or even of passion, but by refinement of thought and sentiment. Hamlet is as little of the hero as a man can be. He is a young and princely novice, full of high enthusiasm and quick sensibility - the sport of circumstances, questioning with fortune and refining on his own feelings, and forced from his natural disposition by the strangeness of his situation.
William Shakespeare's Hamlet is, at heart, a play about suicide. Though it is surrounded by a fairly standard revenge plot, the play's core is an intense psychodrama about a prince gone mad from the pressures of his station and his unrequited love for Ophelia. He longs for the ultimate release of killing himself - but why? In this respect, Hamlet is equivocal - he gives several different motives depending on the situation. But we learn to trust his soliloquies - his thoughts - more than his actions. In Hamlet's own speeches lie the indications for the methods we should use for its interpretation.
Hamlet is the best known tragedy in literature today. Here, Shakespeare exposes Hamlet’s flaws as a heroic character. The tragedy in this play is the result of the main character’s unrealistic ideals and his inability to overcome his weakness of indecisiveness. This fatal attribute led to the death of several people which included his mother and the King of Denmark. Although he is described as being a brave and intelligent person, his tendency to procrastinate prevented him from acting on his father’s murder, his mother’s marriage, and his uncle’s ascension to the throne.
Hamlet’s agony of mind and indecision are precisely the things which differentiate him from that smooth, swift plotter Claudius, and from the coarse, unthinking Laertes, ready to "dare damnation" and cut his enemy's thr’at in a churchyard. He quickly learns from Claudius how to entrap the unwary and the generous, and betters the instruction. (222)