For most individuals, tradition influences familial and societal bonds, and factors into who a person values in their life. In literature, authors employ tradition as a tool in order to add characterization and describe a character’s present bonds. Therefore, Shakespeare utilizes the medieval traditions regarding death, to explore Hamlet’s familial bonds and his characterization regarding these bonds in the play, Hamlet. As of Act I, Scene II, Hamlet endures bitter sadness, not just from his father’s death, but from his mother who betrayed them. Her betrayal started when she only mourned for his father for, “a little month…” while his father had been dead for, “two months…nay, not so much, not two…”. To Hamlet, her breakage of tradition immensely …show more content…
His uncle, along with the kingdom, had to mourn for at least a year before an event like a royal marriage, however, his uncle underwent one anyway. Hamlet rejects him, stating that, “[His] father’s brother, but no more like [his] father than [himself] to Hercules…” which builds his anger towards his uncle for seemingly abandoning and disrespecting his father when instead, he should celebrate his father’s achievements and mourn him. As with his mother, Hamlet feels that his uncle never truly loved his brother and unlike his mother, Hamlet feels as if his uncle envied or at least despised his brother from the way he openly broke the mourning period for the royal marriage. Furthermore, Hamlet feels enraged at his uncle for seducing his and charming his mother into accepting the marriage, so soon after his father’s death. While Hamlet recounts the marriage, his rage grows when he exclaims, “O, most wicked speed, to post…to incestuous sheets!” because he feels disrespected and offended at the speed of which the marriage progressed. Because of this, his suspicions only increased with his anger while he correlates the short time of his father’s death with the royal marriage. As a result, Hamlet grew to despise his uncle even further, and treats him as the stranger who stole his mother away. Ultimately, Hamlet recognizes that breaking tradition will lead to poor events, when he states, “It is not…good…but…I must hold my tongue!” and accepts that his mother and uncle wish to use him for appearances and to keep anyone from questioning their love and respect towards Hamlet, Hamlet’s father, and the mourning traditions of the kingdom. With these recent events in his mind, Hamlet uses his solitude to express his anger and sadness towards everything, and finally vent the stress his uncle and mother
When Hamlet’s mother remarries to Claudius, her husband’s murderer, Hamlet is disgusted that she could move on so quickly. He’s also disturbed over the fact that his Uncle could kill his own brother, and then marry his brother’s widow. This “incestu...
O, most wicked speed, to post. With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!” Hamlet tells how his mother and his uncle married so quickly from the death of his father and moved with such speed and grace to the incestuous sheets that they sleep together in. There are many references to Hamlet’s disgust with his uncle throughout the play. He seems to be strangely preoccupied with the sheets and bed to which his mother shares with his uncle.
While Hamlet may still be feeling depressed Hamlet moves into the stage of denial and isolation. Hamlet feels the effects of denial and isolation mostly due to his love, Ophelia. Both Hamlet’s grief and his task constrain him from realizing this love, but Ophelia’s own behavior clearly intensifies his frustration and anguish. By keeping the worldly and disbelieving advice of her brother and father as “watchmen” to her “heart” (I.iii.46), she denies the heart’s affection not only in Hamlet, but in herself; and both denials add immeasurably to Hamlet’s sense of loneliness and loss—and anger. Her rejection of him echoes his mother’s inconstancy and denies him the possibility even of imagining the experience of loving an...
Hamlet undergoes this stage as his mother, Queen Gertrude, remarries immediately after his father’s death, King Hamlet. He states that “Within a month, ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears had left the flushing in her galled eyes, she married” (1.2.155-158). This quote exhibits Hamlet’s anger towards his mother because he does not believe she feels sad by his father’s death as he refers to her tears as ‘insincere’ and she remarries within a month. According to SAVE, “the circumstances surrounding the death are extremely important in determining how we are goi... ... middle of paper ... ... accepts his feelings towards Ophelia when she passes away.
Hamlet, a young prince preparing to become King of Denmark, cannot understand or cope with the catastrophes in his life. After his father dies, Hamlet is filled with confusion. However, when his father's ghost appears, the ghost explains that his brother, Hamlet's Uncle Claudius, murdered him. In awe of the supposed truth, Hamlet decides he must seek revenge and kill his uncle. This becomes his goal and sole purpose in life. However, it is more awkward for Hamlet because his uncle has now become his stepfather. He is in shock by his mother's hurried remarriage and is very confused and hurt by these circumstances. Along with these familial dysfunctions, Hamlet's love life is diminishing. It is an "emotional overload" for Hamlet (Fallon 40). The encounter with the ghost also understandably causes Hamlet great distress. From then on, his behavior is extremely out of context (Fallon 39). In Hamlet's first scene of the play, he does not like his mother's remarriage and even mentions his loss of interest in l...
Hamlet was very disappointed with his life because he knew that becoming king was one thing that he didn't have in common with his father, because his stepfather was king, “married with my uncle, my father's brother" (I. ii. 151-2). Hamlet was very upset by his mother's marriage, and as he learns later, his father was as well, "It is not nor it cannot come to good: But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue" (I. ii. 157-8). The ghost of Hamlet's father advises his own opinion, "Let not the royal bed of Denmark be A couch for luxury and damned incest" (I. v. 82-3).
Does Hamlet stand alone? Does this magnate of English literature hold any bond of fellowship with those around him, or does he forge through his quandaries of indecision, inaction and retribution in solitude? Though the young Dane interacts with Shakespeare's entire slate of characters, most of his discourse lies beneath a cloud of sarcasm, double meaning and contempt. As each member of Claudius' royal court offers their thickly veiled and highly motivated speech Hamlet retreats further and further into the muddled depths of his conflict-stricken mind. Death by a father, betrayal by a mother, scorn by a lover and abhorrence by an uncle leave the hero with no place to turn, perhaps creating a sense of isolation painful enough to push him towards the brink of madness.
Hamlet is the son of Queen Gertrude, this type of parent and child conflicts are somewhat common in some of Shakespeare’s plays. The events surrounding these characters must be taken into account as we watch the attitudes and personalities of Gertrude and Hamlet change as the play progresses. They have their own unique places in the story but do not always mesh well together when thrown into a conflict. Throughout the play hamlet struggles to keep his sanity. This is especially apparent after his father’s ghost visits him. The ghost tells him that his father was murdered by his uncle Claudius, who is the curre...
In the beginning of Hamlet, the Prince behaves as any normal person would following the death of a loved one. Not only is this a loved one, but an extra special someone; it is his loving father whom he adored. Hamlet is grief stricken, depressed, and even angry that his mother remarried so soon after his father’s death. Having witnessed how his father had treated his mother with great love and respect, Hamlet cannot understand how his mother could shorten the grieving period so greatly to marry someone like Uncle Claudius. He is incapable of rationalizing her deeds and he is obsessed by her actions.
Hamlet has a strong love for his parents and is hurt to see them either die, or fall into the scheme of Old Hamlet’s brother-in-law. Without love in our lives, we would feel almost neglected by the world. After Hamlet’s father dies, he desires his father’s love and comfort that he is unable to get. He turns to his mother after his father’s death and is turned away by her because she has other things to focus on rather than the grieving of Hamlet. Hamlet feels hurt by his mother’s actions and is jealous that she appears to love Claudius and not her own son.
In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the influence of Hamlet’s psychological and social states display his dread of death as well as his need to avenge his father’s death. In turn, these influences illuminate the meaning of the play by revealing Hamlet’s innermost thoughts on life, death and the effect of religion. Despite the fact that Hamlet’s first instincts were reluctance and hesitation, he knows that he must avenge his father’s death. While Hamlet is conscious of avenging his father’s death, he is contemplating all the aspects of death itself. Hamlet’s decision to avenge his father is affected by social, psychological and religious influences.
Hamlet’s attachment to his mother is quickly made evident within the first act of the famous tragedy. Hamlet, who sulks around wearing black clothing to mourn the death of his father, first speaks in the play to insult his stepfather. He voices his distaste at his new relationship with his uncle by criticizing that they are, “A little more than kin and less than kind” (I.ii.65). He believes that it...
The loss of a loved one is difficult on everyone who knew them. It is especially tough on the people who were closest to and looked up to them. We can see Hamlet struggling immensely with the loss of his father at the beginning of the play. To make matters even worse, he does not have the emotional support of his mother and uncle. I would like to discuss Hamlet’s negative relationship with his relatives and its rather large impact on the play itself.
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.