Emma Johns
Mrs. Tiffany Perkins
English II Honors
14 May 2014
Hamlet Final Essay The tragedy of Hamlet by William Shakespeare brilliantly recounts the tale of feigned and true madness as it delves into themes of betrayal, incest, revenge, moral corruption, and death. The play, set in the kingdom of Denmark, gives an account of how Prince Hamlet seeks exact revenge on his uncle Claudius, for murdering his own brother and Prince Hamlet’s father. After assassinating King Hamlet, Claudius succeeds the throne and becomes joined in holy matrimony to King Hamlet’s widow and Prince Hamlet’s mother, Queen
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Hamlet’s image of Claudius reveals the extensive amount of disgust that he has for the man who has married his mother. Later on in the play, when actors arrive at the castle, Hamlet requests that they do a speech that he once heard. This speech happens to be the tale that Aenes told Dido about the murder of Priam. Hamlet starts the speech himself but then lets the actor take control who recites, “Unequal matched/ Pyrrhus at Priam drives…. The ‘unnerved father falls”(2.2.458-461). Here, it is possible that Hamlet is comparing Pyrrhus to himself and Priam to Claudius. In the story of Pyrrhus and Priam, Pyrrhus has come to the city of Troy in order to avenge the death of his father by killing the Trojan King Priam. At one point in the tale, Pyrrhus hesitated with his sword in the air when he had the chance to kill Priam right then. This is similar to act three scene three where Hamlet almost takes Claudius’ life with his dagger while he is praying but halts mid-strike. Another possibility is that Hamlet is comparing Pyrrhus to Claudius and Priam to King Hamlet. Even though Claudius didn’t murder King Hamlet with a sword, they were unequally matched as King Hamlet was asleep when Claudius poisoned him. Hamlet is drawing a parallel between the murder of Prium by Pyrrhus, and the murder of his father at the hands of Claudius. The speech about Pyrrhus and Priam plays a very important role in the play. Up until
Groaning slightly as he lifted the wheelbarrow piled with sacks of soil, Nicholas made his way along the winding path that led from the small storage shed to the flower beds. His job today was to re-soil Mrs. Barrington’s flower garden and tend to the prize winning roses. After that was done he would perhaps go down to the lake and relax, in order to escape any more jobs his father would give him.
murder in a rash mood. It is not seen by Gertrude. It tries to urge
How does the use of comic relief best contrast the tragedy of Hamlet? In great works of literature a comic relief is used as contrast to a serious scene to intensify the overall tragic nature of the play or to relieve tension. As illustrated in Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet, intense scenes are joined with character’s banter and vacuous actions as to add a comic relief. In Hamlet, Polonius acts as a comic relief by his dull and windy personality, Hamlet uses his intelligence and his negativity toward the king and queen to create humor, while on the other hand Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are a comic relief by their senseless actions and naïve natures. Polonius, Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are all used as a comic relief to
What should Hamlet do? Explain the moral theories of each philosopher: Plato, Aristotle and Augustine. For each, determine the right thing for Hamlet to do. Then, assess the prince's actions from the perspective of each recommendation.
In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the titular character struggles to engage in his desired plan of revenge. Hamlet shows throughout the play that he is inconsistent, indecisive, and unsure of himself, as well as his actions. The play focuses on Hamlet’s revenge; however, he continuously fails to happen at opportunistic moments. Throughout the play, Hamlet insists that he intends to avenge his father’s death through the murder of Claudius, but Hamlet fails to act on occasion because of his indecisive personality.
Hamlet decides to get more information / prove what the ghost was saying before doing
Hamlet is not only angered with the fact of his father’s death, but also with his mother’s decision to marry Claudius. Devastated by his mother’s decision to marry so soon after her husband’s death, Hamlet becomes skeptical about women in general. He shows a particular obsession with what he perceives to be a connection with female sexuality and moral corruption. He almost develops hatred towards women because of his mother’s decision. This hatred occurs and is shown with his relationship with Ophelia. He urges Ophelia to go to a nunnery rather than experience the dishonesty of sexuality. This hinders Hamlet from experiencing a love that is really needed at this time of his loss. One can say that this is another flaw, which Hamlet is unaware of.
Hamlet is resentful of himself as he considers both his mother’s incestuous relationship with Claudius and how Claudius murdered his father. He has simply allowed this all the happen without doing anything but wallow in his feelings. Hamlet begins his
Even in the mere beginning of the tragedy, Shakespeare starts to craft a plot in which insanity and vengeance are interlinked. When Hamlet interacts with the ghostly figure of his late father, the spirit reveals he was murdered by his brother, Claudius, who now claims the two things that were most important to him: his throne and his wife, Gertrude. He requests that Hamlet avenge his death by killing Claudius in which Hamlet replies: “...from the table of my memory/ I’ll wipe away all…That youth and observation copies there,/ And thy commandment all alone shall live/ Within… my brain,/ Unmixed with baser matter” (1.5.105-111). Upon stating this, Hamlet writes his committment down in order to make a formal contract with himself. By erasing all other “inferior” information from his brain and making avengeance his first priority, a bud of obsession is revealed, which will be built upon as the plot thickens. The promise of revenge stimulates Hamlet to perform in ways he would not typically execute, inciting the incipient stages of his insanity. After being stripped of kingship from an unrightful heir and discovering Claudius’ audacity to kill his own brother, Hamlet’s rage boils inside of him, creating a desire to kill the man that, quite frankly, ruined his life. Through Shakespeare’s ability to develop this crucial character, the reader becomes aware of Hamlet’s unhealthy obsession with revenge, exposing an intended connection between these two themes.
When you think of William Shakespeare, Hamlet is the first thing most people think of, as his work. Hamlet is also a classic example of a tragedy. In all tragedies the hero suffers, and usually dies at the end. All good pieces of literature written way back when, are usually tragedies.
What is Hamlet about? Maybe a summary of the plot could answer this question but it wouldn’t do it justice. However it’s impossible to narrow down any of William Shakespeare’s work to one theme. The fact is, that all of Shakespeare’s plays are about many things. There are many ways to look at a Shakespearean play, and none are wrong of course, but it is not entirely true to say that one theme is the most important. Some of the more common and dominate themes that can be found in any of Shakespeare’s works are: conflict, appearance and reality, order and disorder, and change.
as these lines relate back to the development of Ophelia’s character, as well as play an important role in the plot of the play, and a major conflict that is portrayed.
will.” ( III I, 179-181) The fear of what will happen after death deters him.
Hamlet is obscure and surprising, and, therefore, confounding because he subverts others’ expectations and never reacts with a predictable response to his own emotions or the expectations of other characters. In addition, it is worth noting that it is not only Hamlet’s curious speech that alienates others. Hamlet’s obsessive pessimism also begins to affect all of his relationships and becomes a large part of who he is as a character. In an otherwise superficial conversation with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Hamlet insists that the world has become a prison with “Denmark being one o’ th’ worst” (2.2.265), and he presses the men to explain why they would want to visit him in the place that torments him. Hamlet’s relationship with his mother is also troubling. While he is justified in questioning her decision to marry Claudius before her husband’s corpse has even cooled, Hamlet is sarcastic and demeaning towards her, provoking her to ask “What have I done, that thou darest wag thy tongue/In noise so rude against me?” (3.4.47-48) These brief and often sarcastic interactions with other characters help define Hamlet as a pessimistic character and cause the reader to anticipate that his perceptions of events will be, almost always, clouded with this characteristic darkness of
A lot about a character shows when that character steps back and says what they are thinking aloud. This is the case for Prince Hamlet. William Shakespeare’s play “Hamlet” features Prince Hamlet, who is depressed about his father’s death and his mother remarrying so soon. Hamlet is visited by the ghost of his father and is ordered to get revenge for his father’s death. Hamlet devotes himself to the task, but because of his nature,he enters deep melancholy and even apparent madness. Throughout the play, Hamlet can be seen being very noble but indecisive at the same time. Hamlet’s soliloquies reveal a lot about his character. However, they mainly show the readers how he can be noble but is indecisive. He can also be viewed as someone in a deep state of depression. These values are shown through his actions of insulting himself for not acting upon what he believes in and continuously reassuring himself that what he does is correct, as well as his word choice and feelings that are expressed out loud to himself during the seven soliloquies.