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Summary of the book Hamlet by Shakespeare themes
Summary of the book Hamlet by Shakespeare themes
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Jessie Steckling
Mr. Sherry
Literature & Composition II PREP
31 October 2014
Literary Analysis of Hamlet
“He is justly served. / It is a poison tempered by himself.” (Hamlet, V, 2 , 359-360). In the play, Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, Hamlet is the son of the late King Hamlet. The old king appears before Hamlet and tells him he was murdered my Claudius, Hamlet’s uncle. Hamlet vows to kill Claudius in order to avenge his father’s death. Polonius is the father of Hamlet’s girlfriend Ophelia. Mistaking him for Claudius, Hamlet stabs Polonius to death. His son Laertes kills Hamlet, and Hamlet kills Laertes and Claudius. Hamlet is unable to overcome his antagonist because of his savage action. The use of tragic flaw, soliloquy, and dramatic irony
Hamlet sees Claudius praying and almost kills him. He contemplates, “Now might I do it pat. Now he is a-praying. / And now I’ll do ’t. And so he goes to heaven,” (III, 3, 76-79). Hamlet decides not to murder Claudius because he thinks if he dies while praying, he will go to heaven. Ironically, the audience finds out that Claudius could not compel himself to pray. According to Hamlet’s philosophy, Claudius would not have gone to heaven if he been stabbed at that moment. Hamlet is about to fence Laertes, but suspects it might not end well. Horatio tells him, “If your mind dislike anything, obey it,” (V, 2, 231). Horatio warns Hamlet not to fence Laertes if he as a bad notion about it. The audience knows that Claudius and Laertes have a plan to kill Hamlet, but he decides to go nonetheless. Before the fencing match begins, Hamlet apologizes to Laertes for being so rude to him at Ophelia’s funeral. Laertes says he apologizes too, and claims their conflict is now resolved. Relieved, Hamlet replies, “I embrace it freely, / And will this brother’s wager frankly play.— / Give us the foils. Come on,” (V, 2, 268-270). Hamlet thinks that there is no remaining tension between the two of them, and agrees to play the match lightheartedly. The audience knows Laertes still passionately hates him for causing Polonius and Ophelia’s deaths, and he is currently plotting Hamlet’s murder. There are many instances in Hamlet
/ It is a poison tempered by himself,” (V, 2, 359-360) at Claudius, the phrase could be applied to Hamlet. He is a tragic hero, and his violent impulses lead to his downfall. He expresses his anger and motivation through soliloquies. Hamlet reacts with vehemence which often causes him to impetuous and brutal. The events leading up to his death heavily involve dramatic irony. In the tragedy Hamlet, Shakespeare uses these elements to convey that rash, violent actions result in one’s demise. The elements used in Hamlet make it a
One of William Shakespeare’s greatest works is a play entitled Hamlet. This play is about Prince Hamlet whose father, the king, was killed by his Uncle, Claudius, who then took the throne. Shortly after the death of his father, Gertrude, his mother, married Claudius. His father comes back as a ghost and tells him about the murder and asks him to seek revenge on Claudius. This is when a great controversy arises that is debatable to this day. Hamlet begins to act mad to set up his revenge on Claudius. The question is, does Hamlet still truly possess his sanity, or is he really mad?
In the play Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, we observe Hamlet as an incredibly complex and bewildering character that upon first glance, seems to undergo a plethora of predicaments. Upon identification of such obstacles, we begin to wonder about whether his entirely fictitious existence in the play classifies him as sane while the world around him is in a way, insane or vise-versa. In addition, one of the main problems that superficially seems to be at the root of his conflicts is his melancholy. This is a condition that has always identified with him throughout the entire play, even still presenting itself up until the very end of Act V. In conclusion, the cause of his affliction is generally simplistic but drawn-out, serving to impact his actions significantly.
Whenever Hamlet denies his true nature, his actions are very harsh. During a heated discussion with his mother Gertrude, he accidentally slays Laertes’ father, Polonius, thinking it to be Claudius. Hamlet quickly brushes it aside. He also sends his friends , Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, to their deaths when he learns of Claudius’ plot to have him put to death when he arrived in England as a so called diplomat.
He has the ability to perform tasks that may be unpleasant or dangerous. Laertes does not simply try to kill someone by thinking cautiously the whole time, but by directly confronting them and facing them head-on. When Laertes returns home to Denmark he even confronts Claudius about the death of his father. Swearing Laertes says “I dare damnation. To this point I stand,/That both the worlds I give to negligence,/Let come what comes, only I’ll be reveng’d/Most throughly for my father.” (IV. v. 133-136). With this declaration Laertes plots with Claudius to kill Hamlet and they construct a plan to have Laertes fence with Hamlet and for him to kill him. They instrument a plot of revenge for the death of Polonius, quickly coming up with three ways to kill Hamlet: stabbing him with an unblunted sword, placing poison on the sword, and poisoning Hamlet’s drink (IV. vii.). After they construct this plan they swiftly utilize the plan. Laertes did not wait for the perfect moment, at the perfect time, and at the perfect place. He created the place, time, and moment to carry out the dangerous task. Hamlet, however, waited and waited for what he thought one day would be the perfect moment in which he could kill his uncle. Even when Hamlet had an opportunity to kill Claudius, he talked himself out of it. When compared to Laertes, Hamlet is a coward because of his inability to
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.
Hamlet’s obsession with taking revenge destroys the relationships in his life. His furiousness with his mother’s marriage causes him to lose respect for her and wish for no more marriages in Denmark (III. i. 144-152). Hamlet’s loss of respect for women affects his relationship with his girlfriend, Ophelia. He slowly begins to drive her away. Hamlet becomes impetuous and consequently kills Ophelia’s father, which permanently destroys their relationship. Another instance of obsession to revenge is Laertes. He becomes so bent upon avenging his family, that he does not think clearly. Claudius deceives Laertes by persuading him into killing Hamlet so that he remains out of harm’s way. However, their obsession to revenge becomes the foundation of their
Madness is a state-of-mind were a person loses their sanity, they are mentally ill. In the play Hamlet, Hamlet meets his deceased father in a ghost form only to inform him of who caused his death and wants revenge. Now Hamlet must avenge his father's death, and the only way he can do it in a less obvious approach is by acting mad. But as the play continues, it becomes a lot harder to tell if Hamlet is still sane due to his actions. In the play Hamlet, William Shakespeare makes Hamlet's madness appear real but only to prove that he was only acting as if he were mad.
Up until this point the kingdom of Denmark believed that old Hamlet had died of natural causes. As it was custom, prince Hamlet sought to avenge his father’s death. This leads Hamlet, the main character into a state of internal conflict as he agonises over what action and when to take it as to avenge his father’s death. Shakespeare’s play presents the reader with various forms of conflict which plague his characters. He explores these conflicts through the use of soliloquies, recurring motifs, structure and mirror plotting.
With his thinking mind Hamlet does not become a typical vengeful character. Unlike most erratic behavior of individuals seeking revenge out of rage, Hamlet considers the consequences of his actions. What would the people think of their prince if he were to murder the king? What kind of effect would it have on his beloved mother? Hamlet considers questions of this type which in effect hasten his descision. After all, once his mother is dead and her feelings out of the picture , Hamlet is quick and aggressive in forcing poison into Claudius' mouth. Once Hamlet is certain that Claudius is the killer it is only after he himself is and and his empire falling that he can finally act.
The situations where Hamlet unexpectedly acts were not relevant to his task, such as the murder of Polonius. During the play rehearsal, Hamlet is shocked by the emotion poured out by the actor over Hecuba, whom doesn’t even exist. Hamlet, whose father was murdered, does not have as near the passion that actor had. Hamlet criticizes himself, saying, “A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak/ Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,/ And can say nothing” (Shakespeare 2.2 578-580). Hamlet calls himself a coward for not doing anything to avenge his father, but rather just staying depressed and weep all day. According to Bradley, “Hamlet was restrained by conscience or a mural scruple; he could not satisfy himself that it was right to avenge his father” (Bradley 4). Hamlet is aware of his constant delays, but still cannot ready himself to kill Claudius because of the excuses he continuously makes up. After criticizing himself, Hamlet sets up a plan that only prolongs his chance of killing Claudius. Hamlet says, “The play’s the thing/ Wherin I’ll catch the conscience of the King” (Shakespeare 2.2 616-617). Hamlet creates a play that reenacts a specific scene, which resembles Claudius murdering his father. Hamlet wants to see Claudius’s reaction to the scene, and confirm his guilty reaction. According to Eliot, “The delay in revenge is unexplained on grounds of necessity or expediency;
He is told the king will wager on him to win. The king and queen, oddly, ask him to meet with them before the match to apologize for the murder he committed. All the while, the King’s plan is to murder Hamlet secretly during the match, making it look like it was all part of the game. Part of the plan is for Hamlet to drink poisoned wine during the match. Additionally, his opponent’s sword has been dipped in poison. Hamlet is offered the wine and refuses. He is wounded by his opponent, but ultimately in a twist of fate, he stabs his opponent with the poisoned sword, ultimately causing his death. Before he dies, he tells Hamlet the sword was poisoned to kill him. During all of that, when Hamlet again refuses the wine, instead his mother grabs the goblet and drinks it. She falls and then she dies. Just before she fell, she announced that the king had poisoned her. What was meant to kill Hamlet has now killed both his mother and his opponent instead. Hamlet, in a blind rage, kills the king with the poisoned sword and pours the poisoned wine down his throat. And then, in the biggest twist of fate yet, Hamlet declares a new king, and then he dies as well. The plotting, planning and madness surrounding the entire existence of Hamlet has led to the ultimate death of everyone, including
Hamlet is one of the most often-performed and studied plays in the English language. The story might have been merely a melodramatic play about murder and revenge, butWilliam Shakespeare imbued his drama with a sensitivity and reflectivity that still fascinates audiences four hundred years after it was first performed. Hamlet is no ordinary young man, raging at the death of his father and the hasty marriage of his mother and his uncle. Hamlet is cursed with an introspective nature; he cannot decide whether to turn his anger outward or in on himself. The audience sees a young man who would be happiest back at his university, contemplating remote philosophical matters of life and death. Instead, Hamlet is forced to engage death on a visceral level, as an unwelcome and unfathomable figure in his life. He cannot ignore thoughts of death, nor can he grieve and get on with his life, as most people do. He is a melancholy man, and he can see only darkness in his future—if, indeed, he is to have a future at all. Throughout the play, and particularly in his two most famous soliloquies, Hamlet struggles with the competing compulsions to avenge his father’s death or to embrace his own. Hamlet is a man caught in a moral dilemma, and his inability to reach a resolution condemns himself and nearly everyone close to him.
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.
Although Hamlet has many significant soliloquies throughout the play, two show very different sides of Hamlet’s character to the naked eye. His “O all you host…” soliloquy portrays an enraged, passionate Hamlet while his “O, what a rogue…” demonstrates how Hamlet’s rationality has stopped him from taking action. Both soliloquies use dark diction, vivid, scholarly imagery and syntax to characterize Hamlet, and portray common Shakespearean themes of revenge and deception.
Hamlet’s tragic flaw was shown to him in a dream by the ghost of his father. His father tells him that he was murdered by his uncle, Claudius. In this scene, the tragic flaw was transferred and manifested itself in Hamlet’s actions. His obsession with revenge and death is all he can think about. He needs to act quickly and decisively but finds himself procrastinating about what to do. In Act III, Hamlet holds the knife over the head of his uncle, Claudius, but cannot strike the fatal blow. Instead, he writes a play about the same scenario to study the reaction of Claudius as to a clue of his guilt. After he decides Claudius is guilty of murdering his father, he still relents from taking his revenge. He says, “Haste me to know ‘t, that I, with wings as swift As meditation or the thought of love May sweep to my revenge.