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Laertes And Fortinbras Analysis

Decent Essays

Through the common loss of their father’s, Laertes and Fortinbras highlight Hamlet’s conflict between his reason and passion. Laertes receives news regarding his father, Polonius’s murder and assumes that King Claudius is responsible. Laertes’s speculation causes him to threaten Claudius, “Only I’ll be revenged most thoroughly for my father” (4.5.128-134). In contrast to Laertes’s judgment, Prince Hamlet is revealed to have killed Polonius out of the belief that Polonius was Claudius. Through the progression of this plot, Laertes is shown as an individual who acts on passion and disregards reason to investigate the truth of Polonius’s murder. To contrast, Fortinbras is communicated as an individual who veils his passion with the voice of reason. After King Hamlet killed Prince Fortinbras’s father, Fortinbras begins to seek vengeance. …show more content…

A response is delivered to Claudius through his councillor, Voltemand, after he consults with the Norwegian king “Upon our first, he sent out to suppress his nephew's levies, which to him appeared to be a preparation ’gainst the Polack”(2.2.61-62). To elaborate, Prince Fortinbras tactfully masked his revenge plan against Denmark while feigning innocence to deceive Claudius and King Fortinbras. Prince Fortinbras continues to seek out his passion by strategically gaining Denmark’s trust and by preparing an attack of passion. Similarly yet contrastingly, the murder of Prince Hamlet’s father, King Hamlet, also causes Prince Hamlet to act on his own impulsive desires. Hamlet is unable to act as quickly as Laertes and consumes his thoughts more aggressively than Fortinbras. To expand, the ghost of King Hamlet appears and affirms that Claudius is his killer; he instructs Prince Hamlet to avenge his death by murdering

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