Overcome, Or Slowly Destroy?

The play, Hamlet opens with the ghost of the late King Hamlet appearing to the guards. before the play began, the King was found dead in the palace gardens. The appearance of the late King's ghost suggest the murder of the King. When the ghost appears to Hamlet, Hamlet learns that his father was murdered by his brother, Claudius. Within the First Act, readers are able to conclude that the murderer by Claudius

William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Hamlet relays Hamlet’s quest to avenge the murder of his father, the king of Denmark. The late King Hamlet was murdered by his brother, Claudius, who took the throne and Hamlet’s mother Gertrude for himself. Hamlet is beseeched by the ghost of his father to take vengeance upon Claudius; while he swears to do so, the prince inexplicably delays killing Claudius for months on end. Hamlet’s feeble attempt to first confirm his uncle’s guilt with a play that recounts the murder and his botched excuses for not killing Claudius when the opportunity arises serve as testimony to Hamlet’s true self. Hamlet is riddled with doubt towards the validity of the ghost and his own ability to carry out the act necessary to

Hamlet’s father died a tragic death. Shakespeare never clearly states the atmosphere and setting of where Claudius poisoned his brother but Branagh chose a clever way to show it. The scene started off outside of the castle on a snowy day. King Hamlet was taking a nap in a chair when Claudius snuck up behind him. Claudius poured poison in the ear of the king and that is when Hamlet awoke from his sleep and started choking. He looked his brother in the eye and died. Kenneth really made it apparent how evil Claudius is. He watched his own brother die and he felt nothing. He made Claudius act the same way as Shakespeare wrote his character to be. Shakespeare had chosen to have Claudius tell the people of Denmark that Hamlet had been killed by a snake. The snake is a perfect symbol of Claudius. Ever since the beginning of time snakes have been viewed as evil because of the story of Adam and Eve. G-d told Adam and Eve to not eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge. While Adam was elsewhere a snake, the devil, came to Eve. He used his sly ways to convince Eve to eat

Similar to the quest for truth in Oedipus’ case, so does Hamlet lead to his own decease. In the first act of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, after Hamlet is aware of the tormented ghost of his father walking on the ramparts, he goes to witness it for himself. This immediately exemplifies the theory that Hamlet, like Oedipus, is in search of the truth, until he realizes it is too much to bear. Subsequent to seeing the apparition, he is convinced to avenge his father’s murderer. The ghost tells him, “Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder,” (29). As Hamlet lays the trap for the new King Claudius, he is procrastinating in order to solve his self-doubt. Even after the ghost tells Hamlet how his father was murdered, Hamlet has the players act

The beginning of the play sets the stage for everything to unfold. Hamlet is weak in the mind due to his father’s unnatural death. In Act 1, Hamlet speaks to the Ghost and learns how his father died. Without Hamlet interaction with the Ghost, he would not have created a desire for revenging his father’s death. Now knowing that Claudius killed his father in order to take his place as king, it only makes sense that Hamlet desires the truth to be revealed as to what happened to his father.

In Hamlet, the Prince attempts to avenge his father, Old Hamlet, whose death is exposed as a murder for power and status by Hamlet’s uncle Claudius. The nature of this murder as “unnatural” is revealed through a conversation between Hamlet and the ghost of his father in unremoved ground (1.5.25): “Tis given out that, sleeping in mine orchard,/A serpent stung me; […] The serpent that did sting thy father’s life/ Now wears his crown” (1.5.35-36/39-40). As a result of this conversation, Hamlet makes the decision to murder Claudius in order to avenge his father and free him from the purgatory his murder has trapped him in (1.5.14).

The ghost of Hamlet's father explains to Hamlet that his brother, Claudius, murdered him and that if Hamlet does not resolve the crimes of his death he will be stuck in purgatory. The three other men do not hear what is said between Hamlet and the ghost, but they do witness the conversation. Therefore, Hamlet is not insane for claiming to have seen the ghost of his father. Upon seeing the ghost and hearing these truths, Hamlet begins to devise a plan to avenge his father's death; he returns to Elsinore acting insane and overwhelmed with grief as a front for the knowledge he has obtained.

In the early stages of the play, Hamlet’s father shows up as a ghost and convinces Hamlet to kill his uncle, Claudius. “I am thy father's spirit, Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night And for the day confined to fast in fires Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature Are burnt and purged away…revenge his most foul and unnatural murder” (I.v.14-31). Hamlet’s father uses the influence he has over Hamlet to have Claudius killed, and to get him out of purgatory. Hamlet’s father is also the cause of his madness, which in turn leads to his death at the end of the play. “O, that this too too sullied flesh would melt, Thaw and resolve itself into a dew, Or that the Everlasting had not fixed His canon 'gainst self-slaughter!

This all sets the stage for Hamlet’s mental state prior to learning that he was killed by somebody in his family. These themes of death and betrayal lead into the end of the first act when Hamlet is tasked by the ghost of his father to seek revenge against Claudius for what he did. Hamlet believes that he was “born to set it right” (1.5.190). The extremes of this line reveal that Hamlet believes that the whole reason for his existence is to avenge his father. This need for revenge drives Hamlet for the rest of the play. He wants justice for his father, but he also wants to punish Claudius for his murder and marrying his mother. He gives in to human nature when he starts striving to avenge his father’s death.

When he promises this to the ghost Horatio and Marcellus come to see where he is upon realizing that if they tell what just happened with the ghost of his father he makes Horatio and Marcellus swear they don’t know what happened with the ghost of Hamlet’s father. Hamlet feels that if he acts mad like he has an invisible mask on himself that he would be able to decipher everyone’s true intentions and what exactly happened to his father but all this does is just Hamlet gets more and more confused and he no longer knows who’s to trust. Hamlet decides that if King Claudius actually committed the murder of Hamlet’s father he needs some type of proof to prove it, Hamlet decides to put on a play called the Mousetrap that shows a King being poisoned in the ear while he is sleeping. Although the play is going on Hamlet is not watching the play but rather watching his uncle and stepfather King Claudius he sees that when the actors role-play the scene of a King being poisoned in the ear while sleeping King Claudius gets up and leaves the play, Hamlet takes this as proof that King Claudius did indeed kill his father. The importance of this small scene is significant because after the play when Hamlet confronts his mother and tells her that Claudius killed his father he hears rustling in the curtains and thinking it was Claudius he stabs whoever is behind the curtain but discovers it is Ophelia’s father Polonius.

When Hamlet is first encountered with the ghost that resembles his father, it is revealed that his uncle Claudius might have been the cause of his father’s death. Hamlet is then confused about what he should believe and how he

Since the death of his father, King Hamlet, Hamlet his son is eluded between his thoughts and his emotions. The real struggle begins when a ghost, namely the ghost of King Hamlet, his father, accuses Hamlet’s uncle Claudius for his murder. When the ghost tells Hamlet about the reason for the murder Hamlet expresses his thoughts and feelings with passion, “The serpent that sting thy father’s life/Now wears his crown” (Shakespeare). The passion from his anger is also evident at the end of the soliloquy when he calls his uncle “damned villain” (Shakespeare). Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude is also accused by the ghost of King Hamlet for being sexually involved with Claudius and hamlet passionately with rage and anger calls his mother “O most precious women” (Shakespeare) at the end of his soliloquy. This situation put Hamlet in a sensitive and fierce battle between what’s truth and what’s right. His thoughts do not run in parallel with his emotions, Hamlet being caught up in this internal confusion keeps on delaying his actions. Furthermore Hamlet’s reason to kill Claudius comes from his passion, but his intelligence gives him reasons not to kill his uncle Claudius. He keeps

King Claudius murders Hamlet Sr. in order to take the crown but makes it seem he was been bitten by a snake. The truth of what actually happened is revealed when Hamlet Jr first sees the ghost, and the ghost tells him, “the serpent that did sting thy father’s life now

Shakespeare's play, Hamlet illustrates the tragedy of a young prince's pursuit to obtain revenge for a corrupt act, the murder of his father.   As the exposition unfolds, we find Prince Hamlet struggling with internal conflict over who and what was behind his father's death.  His struggle continues as he awaits the mystic appearance of a ghost who is reported to resemble his father.  Suddenly it appears, proclaiming, "Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing / To what I shall unfold" (1.5.5-6).  The ghost continues to speak providing an important clue: "The serpent that did sting thy father's life / Now wears his crown" (1.5.38-39).  In short, this passage reveals evidence leading to the identity of whom

As the play goes on, Hamlet encounters his father's ghost. Upon discovering that his father's death wasn't natural, he says with much feeling that "Haste me to know't, that I with wings as swift/ As meditation, or the thoughts of love,/ May sweep to my revenge" (1.5.29-31). The ghost tells him that he was murdered by Claudius. His motives were his love for Gertrude, without her knowledge or consent. Hamlet is furious and seething with rage with the news of his father's murder. Knowing the truth makes Hamlet's subconscious realize that killing Claudius would be similar to killing himself. This is so because Hamlet recognizes that Claudius' actions of murdering his brother and marrying Hamlet's mother, mimicked Hamlet's inner unconscious desires. Hamlet's unconscious fantasies have always been closely related to Claudius' conduct. All of Hamlet's once hidden feelings seem to surface in spite of all of the "repressing forces," when he cries out, "Oh my prophetic soul!/ My uncle!" (1.5.40-41). From here, Hamlet's consciousness must deal with the frightful truth (Jones).