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Hamlet Cause and Effect Essay

In: English and Literature

Submitted By Laning58
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Hamlet Cause and effect Essay
Adam Laning
For any play to be a successful the audience must be able to feel a connection with it, they must feel like they are not just an audience, but perhaps characters in the play itself. One way of making connections between the audience and the play is through speeches that target the audience. In the Play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, there are many examples of this technique of targeting the audience. One example that is very effect in doing this if found in a speech given by Hamlet in act IV, Scene 4. This speech makes many connections with the audience of the Elizabethan era, relating to their social, cultural, and economic values and perspectives. By touching on these topics the speech given by Hamlet in act IV, Scene 4 is very effective in connecting with the audience.
The first way that this speech connects with it’s audience is by touching on their social values and perspectives. The line that does this is “What is a man If his chief good and market of his time Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more. Sure, he that made us with such large discourse, looking before and after, gave us not That capability and godlike reason to fust in us unused.” This play was written and performed during the Elizabethan and Renaissance eras and the people of this time considered themselves to be very educated and thought highly of the human race as a very cultured group of individuals. By calling into question the nature of a person and what separates them from a wild animal, Hamlet’s speech is able to socially connect with it’s audience of the time very easily. This quote from Hamlet forces the audience to think and ponder on what the purpose of life is. This connection with the audience is a very deep one, and undoubtedly would have peaked their interest’ drawing in their ears to the rest of his speech.
With the audience now fully

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