...Hamlet's designation of the importance of religion in relation to the importance of the state can be clarified by way of his soliloquies, throughout Hamlet. More specifically, Hamlet’s first, fourth, and sixth soliloquies, raise the question of how Hamlet views his relationship with God in accordance to his relationship with the state of Denmark. It is evident the Hamlet is particularly religious. Although Hamlet does not explicitly discuss his ideas regarding the significance of religion and state in relation to one another, they can be inferred through his decisions and actions throughout the play. Precisely, Hamlet’s actions regarding Old Hamlet’s Ghost and Gertrude’s marriage, in addition to his thoughts regarding Purgatory and suicide, provide evidence for how he understands this relationship to be balanced....
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...In my opinion Hamlet’s act of going mad can be up for discussion and can be viewed differently according to people’s opinion. Hamlet pretends to be mad because he does not want the kingdom especially King Claudius and Queen Gertrude to know the truth about his father’s death/murder. At the beginning of the play in Scene_____ he admits to Horatio and Marcellus that after his encounter with the ghost he will portray his character to be a mad man. The ghost has come to tell Hamlet what he has to do to set things right. Hamlet does not realize he that this act that way playing of being mad is actually turning against him and realistically gradually is going mad. Hamlet pretending to go mad is only a method he is using to survive in the kingdom with whoever is trying to take him down because they know he is the son of the king and will soon one day be the king of Denmark. Hamlet has an ambition at the beginning of the play to do as his father commanded him to do but without fully exposing the truth of King Claudius’s secret. Hamlet is pretending to be mad to get into King Claudius mind so that he himself will come out with the truth of murdering his brother. The message he received from the ghost has made him not only want to listen to what he was told but also takes things farther. His madness and the message from the ghost begin to affect relationships with his mother, Ophelia, and Guildenstern and Rosencrantz. Hamlet’s relationship with Ophelia can be the downfall of his...
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...Bernardo should tell him who he is first. 2. What is Horatio's initial response to the story of the apparition? Horatio’s initial response is skepticism, as in disbelief. 3. What does Horatio first assume the appearance of the ghost means (1.1.)? He assumes it must mean that there is something wrong with the government. 4. What happens when the ghost appears for the second time (I.I)? Horatio asks the ghost why it had come in the first place and the reason behind such appearances 5. What do we know so far about the nature of the ghost? Do we know yet if it is a "good" ghost? Summarize the circumstances surrounding the first encounter with the ghost. The ghost is Hamlet’s father; one can categorize him as good because he explains to Hamlet the real reason behind his death. 6. Identify Hamlet’s first Soliloquy in Scene 2. What is it that is really bothering him about what has happened since his father's death? How would you describe the tone of his feelings? In his first soliloquy he mourns his father. It is a passionate and startling passage that strongly contrasts to the artificial dialogue and actions that he portrays to his uncle Claudius throughout the remainder of the play. This soliloquy serves to reveal Hamlet’s melancholia and the reasons for his despair in an outpouring of anger, disgust, sorrow, and grief through which he explains how everything in his life seems futile and miserable. 7. Identify the Aside in Act I....
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...many other teenagers. He frequently talks to himself, has problems in his relationship, feels pressure to be like his father, and does not like his stepfather. Hamlet, son of Queen Gertrude and the late King Hamlet, is a teenage boy who is loyal to his father and wants to protect his mother and his family's legacy. After the death of his father, Hamlet's mother Gertrude married Claudius, Hamlet's uncle and the new King of Denmark. One night, a ghost (said to be the ghost of King Hamlet) appears to Hamlet's best friend Horatio. When Horatio tells Hamlet about seeing the ghost, Hamlet requests to see the ghost himself. When the ghost appears to Hamlet, it tells him that his father (King Hamlet) was murdered by his brother Claudius. Hamlet agrees with the ghost to avenge his father's death by killing Claudius, but not to punish his mother for her behavior, which causes a personal conflict for Hamlet. Hamlet is not sure if he should believe the ghost and struggles to determine what to do about his father's death. Hamlet is in love with Ophelia, the daughter of Claudius' most trusted counselor, Polonius. As time goes on, Hamlet's behavior becomes more and more disturbing. Everyone believes Hamlet is experiencing extreme grief from the death of his father. Some thought his behavior was the result of being in love. Hamlet's uncle Claudius sends two men, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, to find out the cause of Hamlet's erratic behavior but they're unsuccessful in finding out what was wrong...
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...protagonist Hamlet. His character is so complex that this essay will scarcely present an adequate portrayal of his character. John Russell Brown in “Soliloquies and Other Wordplay Let the Audience Share Some of Hamlet’s Thoughts” explains the interplay of dialogue, soliloquies and narrative in Hamlet’s role: By any reckoning Hamlet is one of the most complex of Shakespeare’s characters, and a series of soliloquies is only one of the means which encourage the audience to enter imaginatively into his very personal and frightening predicament. The play’s narrative is handled so that a prolonged two-way chase is sustained between him and the king, during which the audience knows more than either one of them and so thinks ahead and anticipates events. In interplay with Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and Polonius, and perhaps with Claudius, Gertrude and Ophelia, Hamlet has asides to draw attention to what dialogue cannot express(55-56). Marchette Chute describes the opening scene of the drama: “For two nights in succession, just as the bell strikes the hour of one, a ghost has appeared on the battlements, a figure dressed in complete armor and with a face like that of the dead king of Denmark, Hamlet’s father. [. . .] The hour comes, and the ghost walks” (35). Horatio and Marcellus exit the ramparts of Elsinore intending to enlist the aid of Hamlet. There is a social gathering of the court, where Claudius pays tribute to the memory of his deceased brother, the former...
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...him dearly offers the reader insight into Hamlet’s mind and story. By studying the relationship between the two and it’s importance as well as viewing Hamlet’s decisions through the eyes of Horatio allows us to learn a lot about Hamlet as a character and better understand the tragedy. Horatio is first presented in the story because of knowledge and intelligence when the guards call him about the ghost they have seen. We immediately figure that he is an intelligent and perceptive man. Due to this he acts as a cornerstone of logic and sanity in contrast to his dear friend’s chaos and madness, providing the reader with a reasonable...
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...Prince Hamlet proclaims these famous words. But what do they actually mean? For decades, readers and audiences alike have been wondering if Hamlet’s “antic disposition” is actually an act, or complete and total madness. It is very possible that, if Hamlet were alive today, he would have been diagnosed with many mental illnesses including post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and bipolar disorder. This is not to say he had these throughout the entirety of his life, but after the death of his father and other traumatic events that added to Hamlet’s misery, his act of madness developed into actual insanity. If he were alive in modern times, he would have been treated for these illnesses with a combination of therapy and medications. Unfortunately, during the time this play is set and was written, a full understanding of psychological disorders has not yet been reached. Because his mental illnesses went untreated, Hamlet was a danger to both himself and others. He is so much of a danger that he kills his uncle, King Claudius, Polonius, Laertes, and his friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Additionally, although it is not by his own hand, both Ophelia, the love of Hamlet’s life, and his mother, Queen Gertrude, take their own lives. Eventually, Hamlet himself dies as a result of a backfired plot to expose his uncle. The effects of Hamlet’s madness on both him, and everyone around him becomes too much, and the tragedy unfurls, although it would have been much different if Hamlet...
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...things about the play Hamlet (with Hamlet playing the main character) is the way relationships between the main and lesser characters have not changed from Shakespeare's time period in which he wrote this play to the modern dilemmas of today. The character Hamlet relates through individualism of self to others in the play and Shakespeare uses this confusion of self and nature thus assuring many types of readers who can relate to his Hamlet characterization. Hamlet portrays himself with all his human flaws, but it is this humanity that makes him distinctive from everyone else in the story. In addition, all of Hamlet's waking hours are preoccupied with his own thoughts thus adding more intensity to his feelings and perceptions about where he sees imperfections, worry and tension as well as confusion, but without a doubt it is these human qualities which makes his situation so impossible for him to resolve easily. Another tragic role of the play is its irony. The irony allows the storyline to show humor as well as the cause and effects of each action taken. There is usually little reason for a tragedy to be funny so Shakespeare has used this type of humor to add more irony to the already tragic events of the play. Pause for thought is in the types of conflict that play a major part in the play and the relationships between Hamlet and the two people who have been closest to him; being Ophelia and the ghost. Hamlet cannot share his strong feelings and emotions with his mother or his girlfriend...
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...disposition affects his judgment, destroys relationships and creates a belief that he is truly mad. Throughout the play, Hamlet is consumed with anger of his father’s death which causes him to act through emotion and without reason, thus affecting his judgement. Hamlet’s main goal is to avenge the death of his father. His actions to do so are hindered because of the irrational decisions he has made through the antic disposition he has put on that has finally led to his misguided judgement. Hamlet’s irrational decisions began after the death of his father. As any normal human being would be allowed to grieve, Hamlet was not, he was expected to accept the death of his father and move on. “Do not for ever with thy vailed lids, Seek for thy noble father in the dust. Thou know'st 'tis common. All that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity.” (Act 1, Scene 2. 69-74) These lines spoken by the Queen, Hamlet’s mother, are proof that Hamlet is obliged to accept his father’s death. With little time to grieve and a mother that seems to care less about her deceased husband, Hamlet’s mind was given the perfect recipe for insanity and the different path of judgement he has taken. At midnight, a mysterious ghost appeared to Hamlet in the shape of his father, King Hamlet. The strange and mystifying ghost guided Hamlet away from Horatio and Marcellus, as if wanting privacy. Hamlet became defensive and mad and believed his fate was to follow the ghost, “My fate cries out, And makes each petty...
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...and Guildenstern their end is just. With Ophelia and the Queen, Gertrude, their lives are ended unjustly because they mistakenly got involved in Hamlet’s revenge on Claudius. In addition to the deaths of his enemies, Hamlet fulfills several other duties to his dead father and himself. Hamlet’s primary duty is to usurp King Claudius from the throne he stole from Hamlet’s father. His secondary duty is to usurp him from the power of his family and his mother’s bed. Hamlet accomplishes most of his goals but along the way manages to involve innocent lives that end up paying the ultimate price for his blinding need for revenge. The Ghost that enters into Hamlet’s life leaves him with no choice but to go after his father’s killer. With the knowledge the ghost gives him, he is armed with the hatred and vengefulness to carry out the act of removing Claudius from the throne by whatever means necessary. Both the ghost of Hamlet’s father and Hamlet himself will not be able to rest until the throne is rightfully in Hamlet’s hands. Amidst his plan for revenge, Hamlet offends and eventually plays a part in killing his mother. His father’s ghost expected Hamlet to spare his mother because she was nothing more than a victim of her circumstances. By contributing to her death, Hamlet fulfills one of his goals of removing the relationship between Claudius and his mother. As the tragic character, Hamlet found himself dealing with many things in his life that he couldn’t live with...
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...Home > Why Hamlet Delays His Revenge Why Hamlet Delays His Revenge (Excerpt from Quintessence of Dust: The Mystical Meaning of Hamlet) Kenneth Chan ... Hamlet is finally alone, and the stage is set for the soliloquy that gave rise to one of the most persistent mysteries in literature: Why does Hamlet delay his revenge? Hamlet Ay, so, God buy you. Now I am alone. Oh, what a rogue and peasant slave am I! Is it not monstrous that this player here, But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, Could force his soul so to his whole conceit1 That from her working all his visage wanned, Tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect, A broken voice, and his whole function suiting With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing! For Hecuba! What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, That he should weep for her? What would he do Had he the motive and the cue for passion That I have? He would drown the stage with tears, And cleave the general ear with horrid speech, Make mad the guilty and appal the free,2 Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I, A dull and muddy-mettled3 rascal, peak Like John-a-dreams,4 unpregnant5 of my cause, And can say nothing--no, not for a king, Upon whose property and most dear life A damned defeat was made. Am I a coward? Who calls me a villain, breaks my pate across, Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face, Tweaks me by the nose, gives me the lie i'th'throat As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this? Ha, 'swounds, I should take...
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...discusses his true feelings to Gertrude while Polonius overhears the conversation. It probes the sexuality of Hamlet and Gertrude and is the turning-point in which Hamlet demonstrates a change in character. Throughout the play, Hamlet displays hostility towards his uncle Claudius due to the marriage between him and Gertrude. This is especially evident in the closet scene as Hamlet berates his mother with many sexual and incestuous references. In order to explain the relationship between Hamlet and his mother, Sigmund Freud’s theory the Oedipus Complex identifies this situation as a male’s unconscious sexual desire for his mother (Losh). Freud believes that these sexual desires are repressed unconsciously which in turns creates a lasting effect in a boy’s life (Losh). An example in this scene is when Hamlet says: “But to live / In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed, / Stewed in corruption, honeying and making love / Over the nasty sty!” (Shakespeare, 3.4.99-102). Hamlet is furious with his mother’s sexual relationship with Claudius and his sexual desires emerges in his sexual allusions. He refers to a bed which is appropriate in this scene as they are in Gertrude’s bedroom. In context with the Oedipus Complex, a bed creates a sexual intimacy due to the private...
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...king, the queen, Horatio, and all their other friends came to watch them. The fight was in a large room. The fight began and at first, Hamlet was winning. Gertrude, believing that Hamlet's hitting Laertes means her son is winning the fight, had drunk a toast to her son from the poisoned cup Claudius had intended for Hamlet. The Queen died. In the middle of the fight, Laertes cut Hamlet with his poisoned sword. Hamlet retrieved the sword and cut Laertes. The lethal poison killed Laertes. Before he died, Laertes told Hamlet that because Hamlet had already been cut with the same sword, he too will shortly died. Horatio diverted Hamlet's attention from Laertes for a moment by pointing out that "The Queen fell." While Laertes lied dying, he explained that Gertrude's death lied on Claudius' head. Finally enraged, Hamlet stabed Claudius with the poisoned sword and then poured the last of the poisoned wine down the King's throat. Before Hamlet died, he turned to his best friend, Horatio, and told him to tell his story to the world if Horatio really loved him. My reaction: After I have read this story, I have felt it is a tragedy one. The sentences written in this story are easy to understand. This story proves that the saying “you have to reap what you sow” is true by seeing Claudius’s action. Hamlet’s hatred to kill Claudius leads him towards his tragic ending. Because of Claudius’s...
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...and Horatio, a friend of Prince Hamlet. Bernardo and Marcellus have urged Horatio to stand watch with them, because they believe they have something shocking to show him. In hushed tones, they discuss the apparition they have seen for the past two nights, and which they now hope to show Horatio: the ghost of the recently deceased King Hamlet, which they claim has appeared before them on the castle ramparts in the late hours of the night. Horatio is skeptical, but then the ghost suddenly appears before the men and just as suddenly vanishes. Terrified, Horatio acknowledges that the specter does indeed resemble the dead King of Denmark, that it even wears the armor King Hamlet wore when he battled against the armies of Norway, and the same frown he wore when he fought against the Poles. Horatio declares that the ghost must bring warning of impending misfortune for Denmark, perhaps in the form of a military attack. He recounts the story of King Hamlet’s conquest of certain lands once belonging to Norway, saying that Fortinbras, the young Prince of Norway, now seeks to reconquer those forfeited lands. The ghost materializes for a second time, and Horatio tries to speak to it. The ghost remains silent, however, and disappears again just as the cock crows at the first hint of dawn. Horatio suggests that they tell Prince Hamlet, the dead...
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...Hamlet is a drama that tells the story of a bewildered young prince, a thinker who must contend with vengeful impulses riled by his father's ghost and subsequently by the prince's own agonized sensibility to the decorum of revenge. Shakespeare manages to induce Hamlet's sensibilities in many ways, not the least of which is the "poison in the ear" motif that courses the length of the drama. Indeed, in Act 1 Scene 5 Shakespeare introduces the literal act of Claudius pouring poison into the "porches" of old King Hamlet's ear, as related to the prince by old Hamlet's ghost. But the extent to which earpoisoning plays a role in the play is, at the juncture of Act 1.5, only beginning to take root. Even in Act 1.4, before the truth of King Hamlet's death is ever known or even suggested by the play's action, Shakespeare alludes to the overwhelming power of envenomed sound and poisonous aural suggestion. Likewise in the following 2.1, Shakespeare subtly elaborates on the motif, which, once given its literal form in Act 1.5, is only in its infancy, though by the drama's conclusion it's structurally crucial has been made increasingly apparent. In Act 1.4 the Ghost makes its second appearance in the play, though it is the first time Hamlet has witnessed him. Besides furthering the plot, Act 1.4 also serves as a prelude to the pivotal 1.5 wherein the Ghost reveals to Hamlet the secret that rules the action of the remainder of the playthe murderous deed of Claudius. It is of no surprise, then...
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