...hundreds of years. It is only a part of life. As time evolves the ability to triumph over good or evil is the difference between those that sit at the bottom, and those that rise to the top. As in this medieval period, overcoming certain obstacles has been part of the human life cycle and is still present in the modern day. The Medieval period in which Hamlet took place demonstrates one character trying to overcome not only one obstacle, but many. Major conflict arises even at the beginning of the play. Although Hamlet has no control of what goes on between Gertrude and Claudius, in his mind a solution must ascend. After the cruel overtaking of power by Claudius, Prince Hamlet must find a way in order to avenge his father’s death. The truth has been exposed by a ghost resembling King Hamlet. Now it is time for him to strategize in order to find which solution is the best. Killing him would do the trick, but is that the answer? Some options arise in the famous “To be or not to be” soliloquy. “Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them. (Shakespeare, Hamlet)” Prince Hamlet really struggles in this situation on his next move. As much as he wants to avenge his father’s murder, it can completely change the outcome of what may be the result. Each and everyday Hamlet is faced with choices, and only he can make the final decision. However when his mind is finally made up, the...
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...Hamlet: The Drama Behind It All Most of Shakespeare pieces of writing are fictional. His other pieces are based on an old story Shakespeare had adapted. His writing has many twists and changes that engages the reader and allows them to read more. Shakespeare’s works of art are all written in the form of a play as opposed to a novel or short story. Shakespeare uses literary devices and a huge amount of imagination to come up with these fascinating stories. The story of Hamlet begins when King Hamlet died and was eventually buried. Prince Hamlet, his son, found a mysterious ghost inside the castle which drives him to take vengeance on his father’s death and seek revenge on Claudius for his father’s murderer. True this can be seen as a "tragedy" but Hamlet isn't just any tragedy—it's a classic and revengeful tragedy! One literary device that Shakespeare uses in this particular play is antithesis. Antithesis is contrary ideas expressed in a balanced sentence. He uses this literary device when he writes, “To be, or not to be, that is the question” (Barnet, Burto, & Cain, 2014). He is expressing opposite ideas of being or not being, living or dying. Another, antithesis example in Hamlet, is when Claudius asks Hamlet about the clouds. Hamlet replies, “Too much in the sun” (Barnet, Burto, & Cain, 2014). Hamlet contrasts imagery of clouds to rain and storms. Also the grief to imagery of sun to joy and happiness. As he does this sarcastically, he also puns the word “sun” with “son”...
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...There are several similarities between William Shakespeare's Hamlet and Walt Disney's The Lion King, due to The Lion King being adapted from Hamlet. Many of the similarities occurred between the storylines of the two works and the main characters within the works. However, the storyline was not exactly, mostly differing in the order in which events occurred and the development and portrayal of some of the characters. The storyline of Hamlet and The Lion King are nearly identical. Both King Hamlet and Mufasa were killed by their brothers, who were jealous of their title and wished to be king of their respective empires. After disposing of the king, both claimed the throne through a rather unorthodox method. After the murders. the son of the king, Hamlet, in Hamlet, and Simba, in The Lion King, were both convinced by their uncles to leave their homes for a period of time. When the finally return home after some time had passed, they pushed their uncles into a confrontation, which resulted in the two uncles deaths. However, there are several discrepancies within how specific events occurred in The Lion King. For example one being, how Claudius and Scar killed their brothers, and how they both claimed the throne. Also when the ghosts of Mufasa and Hamlet returned from the grave to bring messages to their...
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...Hamlet Throughout one of William Shakespeare’s most celebrated works Hamlet, the main character Hamlet is constantly at odds with himself on matters that perpetually test his allegiance to his father’s legacy, and his will to avenge his father’s brutal death. Various speeches in this play have laid the foundation for the plot of this play. These speeches include Hamlet’s first encounter with his father’s ghost, King Claudius’s confession, and the closing scene in which all the main character have fallen. With the support of various soliloquies and dialogues throughout the play, these three speeches helped to summarize the ultimate message of this work. The first act in Hamlet was composed of many events the aided in the introduction and tone of the play. This act explains in detail to audience, the state of the kingdom, Hamlet’s feelings toward the incestuous marriage of his mother and his uncle, and the true reason behind his father’s death. In scene 5 of act one starting with line 42, king Hamlet’s ghost appears to Hamlet to unveil many truths which include the culprit behind his death. Here king Hamlet reveals that he did not die from a poisonous snake, but that his own brother Claudius committed the murder. King Hamlet then goes on explaining to Hamlet that his death must be avenged not only because killing a family in the act of jealously is wrong, but because king Hamlet didn’t have a chance to repent his sins on earth and now suffers in the flames of purgatory. This...
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...This passage appears in the text quite early on, quickly giving the audience a window into Hamlet’s soul and the clockwork of his thoughts. In this the first of several of Hamlet’s soliloquies, Hamlet sets the scene as it has evolved in his mind. Hamlet begins the passage by cursing himself for what is happening around him. He wishes that he did not exist any longer. He desires that he did not have to live in a world that would allow what is happening around him to occur. He craves for his body to dissolve into nothing, wishing that he could will his body to “thaw and resolve itself into dew”. But since he cannot melt, he would consider suicide if God “the Everlasting” were not so against the notion. His belief is that God has his “fix’d his canon ‘gainst self-slaughter!”. Hamlet feels that things are falling apart around him. He resolves that the world is a kind of un-weeded garden, the garden itself being an allusion to the world around him. Hamlet’s world/garden “grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature”. His garden is flowered with treachery and pain, weeded by the evil King, Queen and the others. This allusion can be considered applicable to the state of Hamlet’s mind as well as to the State of Denmark. Being that Hamlet sees the State of Denmark as falling to ruin and chaos in the hands of Claudius. All after his father, who had been “so excellent a king” to the people of Denmark. He compares his father and Claudius as being like unto a “Hyperion...
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...By highlighting the human experiences of the individual characters and their natural reactions to certain events, Shakespeare’s Hamlet allows contemporary audiences to value the continuing significance of gender roles, religion and personal behaviour in shaping ones identities and relationships. In Shakespeare’s times, as Queen Elizabeth’s reign passed to James 1st and the courts were changing to a Machiavellian system based on expediency for political gain, loyalties began to be questioned and a corresponding uncertainty was created. This uncertainty is also common within our own changing modern society. Shakespeare’s uncertainty and concern about the relationships between men and women remains relevant today, allowing me to empathise with the female characters, Gertrude and Ophelia. Though society’s treatment of women has improved, some inequality still remains, enabling us as modern responders to understand Shakespeare’s portrayal of women’s experiences and their loyalty towards their patriarchal figures. Hamlets mistreatment of Ophelia, “God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another,” uses ploce to highlight his hypocrisy considering the “antic disposition” he puts on. Similarly, the vulgar comment, “nothing ... between maids' legs,” goes unchallenged, emphasising how Ophelia’s expected obedience prevents her defying a male’s authority. This portrayal represents Shakespeare’s patriarchal values, emphasising the seemingly eternal struggle for gender equality...
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... Gertrude is the Queen of Denmark, and the mother to Hamlet. In the play, Gertrude doesn’t mean to intentionally hurt anyone, but her poor judgment is the main contributing factor to the unfortunate events. She also tends to be insensitive and lacks the ability to read her son’s emotions, as well as Claudius. The decisions she makes ultimately lead to the tragic ending. Poor judgment and insensitivity towards her son are her main character flaws, which can first be seen in Act I, Scene 2. Since her son Prince Hamlet is mourning the loss of his father, she should’ve been more conscious and sensitive towards his feelings and refrained from having a relationship with Claudius. Claudius is the brother of King Hamlet and Gertrude should’ve realized how embarrassed her son Hamlet would be in the aftermath because it was considered to be incest for a widow to marry her husband's brother. But Gertrude is not in touch with Hamlet's feelings to know why he is angry. He expresses his anger during his first soliloquy: “O most wicked speed: to post With such dexterity to incestuous sheets, It is not, nor it cannot come to good, But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue.” (I.ii. 156-159) Gertrude lacks awareness and therefore is unable to realize that her marriage to Claudius hurt her son and is seen as incest to him and others. She figured that if she’d waited to remarry, it would’ve given Hamlet time to grieve and he would’ve had a different reaction to the...
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...because it looked like Hamlet walked into her room as if he just came back from hell. Polonius fears that his decision to get Ophelia to stop seeing Hamlet and to keep them from communicating as often may have been the cause of what has happened to Hamlet. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are former friends of Hamlet from Wittenberg. The King and Queen invited Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to Elsinore because the King and Queen need their help with Hamlet. They want Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to spend some time with Hamlet to see if they can get Hamlet to have fun and find out if anything is bothering him....
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...Why does hamlet delay in killing Claudius? Hamlet feels that since claudius was praying at the altar, he was in a state of “holiness” which made hamlet reluctant to kill him at that time. Hamlet does not want Claudius to have any chance to go to heaven or have grace in what he has done and thinking of what might happen to him in the spiritual world, living up to the sin that he has committed. Hamlet decides to wait, resolving to kill Claudius when the king is sinning—when he is either drunk, angry, or lustful. Now might I do it pat. Now he is a-praying. And now I’ll do ’t. And so he goes to heaven. And so am I revenged.—That would be scanned. A villain kills my father, and, for that, I, his sole son, do this same villain send...
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...Hamlet can be portrayed as a man of action and a man of thought. The question is asked frequently is which one is he? Well in the book it talks about how he can be a man of action by how he kills Polonius, his ex-girlfriends father. Although it also talks about how he can be a man of thought by his way of creating a play to make it react the killing of his father. Hamlet can seem as a man of action by the way he killed Polonius while talking to his mother. In the story, it says "How now, a rat? Dead for a ducat, dead!". This was the point in which Hamlet stabs Polonius through a curtain where he was standing and listening to the conversation. This goes to say he is a man of action later on in the story although in earlier scenes he seems...
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...In the movie the Dead Poets Society, Mr.Keating influences Todd Anderson to seize the day and to think for himself. For example, in the beginning of the movie, Todd was very orthodox with anti-transcendentalist views. Todd followed every rule at Vermont boarding school; however, Mr.Keating teaches his students to not go by tradition but by thinking for themselves. In the movie, Mr.Keating was telling the kids to rip out the pages from their textbooks, he mentions, “In my class you will learn to think for yourselves again”. Mr. Keating explains that the students should think for themselves rather than following a scale by J. Evans Pritchard. This is similar to the writings of Henry Thoreau, a transcendentalist writer. Thoreau wrote a piece of art called “Where I Lived and What I Live For”, he explains “For most men, it/ appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty/ about it, whether it is of the devil or of God,/ and have somewhat hastily concluded that it/ is the chief end of man here to ‘glorify God/ and enjoy him together”. This quote explains how most people follow society and what they believe; however, they do not think for themselves. They do not think what the chief end of man is but rather follow society without thinking what to glorify god and enjoy him forever really means. This connects to Todd because Mr.Keating inspired him to not follow tradition and join the Dead Poets Society. By joining the Dead Poets Society, he learned transcendentalist views and grew an appreciation...
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...William Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet. It is the very basis for the play and a string of words familiar to many different people all over the globe. In the infamous ‘To Be or Not to Be’ soliloquy, Hamlet makes a universal conviction about life and death, though in the end makes a conclusion that individuals who think too much can destroy themselves”by including, the diction, the syntax, and the imagery. The diction in this piece truly shapes and adds character to the meaning of the soliloquy. Words such as “undiscovered country” (Shakespeare 63), “fardels” (Shakespeare 63), “ills” (Shakespeare 63), “suffer” (Shakespeare 63), and “calamity” (Shakespeare 63) make the reader...
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...Hamlet’s plan, struggle, and inevitable death Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a very controversial story of how the entire royal family of Denmark was wiped out. Hamlet is doomed to die, but in his death Denmark would be purged of its evil. Through murderous plots and schemes, it is revealed that King Hamlet’s brother Claudius murdered him. Hamlet is the son of the late King Hamlet, he was supposed to be the next king, but Claudius quickly married Hamlet’s Mother to take the crown. During the play, it is shown why Hamlet is a considered a revenge tragedy. Throughout the play Hamlet’s view of death prevents him from taking action, but through accepting his fate he is able to finally kill his uncle, without thinking about his death. After Hamlet meets...
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...The Victorian era, the period of the nineteenth century when Queen Victoria ruled England, was a time in which there were many advances and changes that occurred in English society. Robert Browning was one of the leading poets of this time, and many of his poems contain the theme of violence, focusing especially on violence against women. Browning’s use of violence in his poetry is symbolic of the oppression of women during this time period by their husbands and society. This oppression is seen through the examination of two of Browning’s most well-known poems, “My Last Duchess” and “Porphyria’s Lover”. Browning’s “My Last Duchess” is a poem written in dramatic monologue in which a Duke in Renaissance Italy shows the servant of his future wife a painting of his former wife, and recounts the circumstances which lead to her death. Duke Ferrara, the speaker of the poem, describes his wife’s tendency to be equally pleased at anyone and everything. While the poem seems at first to be an affectionate tribute from the Duke to his late wife, “The Last Duchess” has a darker connotation that reveals an oppressive and possessive male-dominated relationship. The Duke reveals his outrage and jealousy of his wife’s tendency to smile and blush at everyone, and to not give him any special attention. He describes her a having “had/A heart—how shall I say?— too soon made glad,/Too easily made impressed”(Browning 21-23). The Duke, having come from a “nine-hundred-years-old name” (Browning 33), feels...
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...In terms of performance, musical theatre is an exaggerated form of reality; a “life plus magnitude” (Deer and Vera, 2008. pp.10), therefore it was essential that my portrayal of Maureen was externally magnified in expression, yet detained a sense of truth, internally. ‘Over the Moon’ allowed me to let go and be free, which allowed me to truly enjoy exploring the expressionistic aspect of the monologue. It was also vital that my delivery was passionate and my gesticulation animated, so that the audience would be completely immersed in Maureen’s vision, as I knew my presence would have to hold the stage and the audience for a long period of time (5 mins). I created a choreography which I felt would enhance the monologue; however it was crucial that I didn’t over demonstrate the description. Since, there was a need for balance between my delivery and movement; hence I made sure I physically highlighted only particular and significant phrases of the monologue, i.e. milk (gesturing to my chest). By doing so, I feel as though I was able to successfully enhance the humorous side of the monologue, which would make the performance far worth watching. I also found that the movements made it easier for me to track where I was within the monologue, as the movements were ingrained within my muscle memory. Moreover, “the right measure of syllables, words, speech, movements in actions, together with their clear cut rhythm is profound significance of an actor” (Stanislavski, 1992, p. 192),...
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