The Theme Of Death In Hamlet By William Shakespeare

Hamlet is strongly held by archetypes that can be revealed throughout the play. Death, itself, is a very strong archetype in the story exploring the social beliefs in that era; superstitions and societies loyalty to religion. Throughout the play, Hamlet experiences his main trifles over the concept of death. Reviewing the murder of his father and the task given to him to kill his uncle, Hamlet becomes fascinated with the idea of existence and afterlife.As a whole, Hamlet is primarily concerned with exploring the individual's relationship with death in which our fear of death comes from the notion that there must be something else, eliminating the fact that we can't ever know for sure if there is. This idea is explored in Hamlet’s “to be or not to be” soliloquy, which questions the righteousness of life over death in moral terms. When Hamlet utters the pained question, “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” (Act 3, Scene 1 59-61) there is little doubt that he is thinking of death. Although he attempts to pose such a question in a rational and logical way, he is still left without an answer of whether the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” can be eliminated since life after death seems so uncertain. All of this mirrors aspects of human nature as man has always questioned the meaning of life and the events that occur after. Theoretically, one will never understand the full nature of our

The gravedigger scene in act 5 scene 1 shows the most about how Hamlet feels about death. Hamlet refers to the skulls he finds belonging to other people and their past lives.

“There’s another. Why may not that be the/ skull of a lawyer? “ (5.1-100-101). He ponders between the physical characteristics and personalities of human life. He essentially thinks who he will be after he dies. After death, one essentially becomes nothing but dust, like the biblical saying, “from ashes to ashes, and dust to dust”. “To what base uses we may return, Horatio!” (5.1.209). Hamlet is often wondering about death, speaking about it, and thinking of the gory images of death. Thinking of it in such a matter, he appears sick. He refers to dead bodies being put in to everyday items.

Throughout the course of the play, Hamlet is also obsessed with the mystery of death. In the beginning of the play, he states that he is unsure where one ends up after they die. Later into the play, he makes a reference to the afterlife contradicting his first approach. When he attempts to kill

This change occurs during the graveyard scene in Act 5, when Hamlet explores death while conversing with the Gravedigger. Before this scene, Hamlet’s internal struggle was centered not only around how avenging his father’s death would affect his experience in the afterlife, but also about leaving behind the known world of the physical. When Hamlet comes face-to-face with the bones of those from his past in the graveyard scene, this internal conflict is resolved. In this scene, Hamlet observes that death takes everyone, regardless of how one leads their lives. This occurs when Hamlet picks up a skull that the gravedigger has nonchalantly thrown around, only to discover that it belongs to Yorick, a jester who had served King Hamlet and who Hamlet remembers as being “a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy” (5.1.173-4). Even though Yorick devoted his life to making others happy, he died and his corpse rot away, leaving behind only a skull to be desecrated by a gravedigger. Hamlet later talks to Horatio about Alexander and Caesar, two powerful leaders who had all the power in the world. They are, however, “dead and turned to clay, / Might [be stopping] a hole to keep the wind away” (5.1.202-3). Through his experience in the graveyard Hamlet also notices that when someone dies, none of their status or

In “Hamlet” by William Shakespeare, there is death from the very beginning. From the very first death mentioned--that of the late king--to that of the very last death, that of Hamlet himself, death is a constant theme and is always mentioned throughout the play. However, in the last two scenes of Act 5, the final act, death is very much present. With how Act 5, Scene 1, opens, some consider this a foreshadowing of all the death and pain that is to occur throughout the rest of the final act.

Death as an image in Hamlet is used to present both the effects of sinning on Hamlet and Denmark’s corruption. In the opening act, Hamlet speaks to Claudius and Gertrude regarding his melancholy attitude due to his father’s murder (which was committed by Claudius); when the King and Queen leave, Hamlet says in an aside that he wishes that God had not made suicide a sin. During his speech, Hamlet says that he wishes his “too sullied flesh would melt” meaning he wishes he could kill himself to get rid of his depression (1.2.133-134). This imagery of melting flesh is a representation of death that shows Hamlet’s pain. In addition, death imagery is seen during Laertes’s speech to Ophelia regarding his concerns about Hamlet’s intentions.

In the soliloquy “To be, or not to be: that is the question” spoken by Hamlet, he discusses his views on death (III.i.56). In this scene he is contemplating his thoughts on suicide, death, life, and the afterlife as he awaits his meeting with Claudius. He reflects on whether the afterlife will have the same problems as his current life. He also shares his thoughts on death in another scene where he is a graveyard. Hamlet basically says you die and become food for the worms and then you are nothing in these lines “Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returned into dust; the dust is earth; of earth we make loam” (5.i.209-211). He gives so many details on life and death, yet he is the one causing so many of the deaths that occur within the play. If it were not for him seeking revenge for his father’s death then so many of the events that

In William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, it’s clear that the title character, Hamlet, has a relationship with death, that relationship is often misunderstood. Some see him merely as an agent of death, and others believe he retains a lust for it throughout the entire play, inspired by the tragedy he’s experienced. While these interpretations are partially true, they don’t hold true throughout the play. Hamlet has a disdain for the world which makes him desire nothing but to fade away in the beginning of the play, but he develops a respect for fate and the unknown aspects of the afterlife. This respect eventually manifests itself in an attitude of indifference towards death.

Towards the end of the play, there are two scenes in the graveyard. One is when Hamlet picks up a skull, and the gravedigger tells him that the skull belonged to Yorick, the old king's jester. Hamlet tells Horatio that he knew Yorick, and then realizes what we all become after we die, dust. He then plays with the idea of life and death, and describes the finality of it. The gravedigger scene is the tragic conclusion of the play. The second scene of comedy in this scene is when the gravediggers argue whether Ophelia should be allowed to be

Death, the inescapable fate of all living creatures and the finale to every journey. All great tragedies ultimately finish with a similar calamity: the main character becomes the foil of him or herself after a dramatic epiphany or he or she leaves the natural world in an even more flamboyant fashion. Shakespeare incorporates both endings in his tragedy, Hamlet, when revealing the title character’s change of heart through the Yorick scene. When Hamlet sees that even his childhood friend Yorick fell victim to inexorable death, Hamlet recognizes his mistakes and understands his final purpose as a means to an end. The primary focus of the photo reenactment, the freezer, works to illustrate Hamlet’s cold realization of the mortality of life and

Hamlet is so depressed that he feels life isn't worth living and Shakespeare's death imagery helps us to feel what Hamlet is experiencing because we can actually picture flesh turning to dew. A reader could argue that all this death and gore could be in Hamlet's mind alone until Horatio says, "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark (I, IV, 90)." Now we know not only does Hamlet think this, but Horatio does as well. Picture festering carrion as a metaphor for King Hamlet's death and we realize that Horatio's words couldn't be truer. The ghost also makes a horrible reference. He says at the moment of his death, his skin became "Most lazar-like with vile and loathsome crust all my smooth body (I, V, 72)." This passage is exceptionally powerful and you can almost "feel" what death is like, with skin crusting over and open sores flowing with puss, you become like a leper before death takes its toll.

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.

The subject of death and decay in Hamlet bonds and fuses the whole of the play together. Not only does the play start off with the death of King Hamlet, but because of this the whole play is filled with thoughts and actions of suicide, murder and death. Shakespeare uses the images of death and decay regularly throughout the play in many different ways, and each passing of a character relates to another death before it. Decay is used in many ways throughout Hamlet, whether it is the decay of Denmark, the decay of moral or emotions, but the majority of it relating to the decay of a dead body. Because the decay of a body is not possible unless the body is deceased, once a character dies in the play rotting or the eating of flesh is usually mentioned

In Act III, scene I of Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, the thematic imagery, along with the symbolic use of syntax and diction that Shakespeare uses helps convey Hamlet’s state of mind as troubled and as having a painful view to life which, overall, is subtly expressed with weakness as he talked about death.