Self-Respect In Hamlet

Topic: Discuss the ideas developed by the text creator about the individual’s capacity for self-sacrifice in the face of compelling circumstances.

Custer’s Last Stand. The Battle of Stalingrad. Napoleon’s Russian Campaign. The introduction of the Pontiac Aztek. All epic failures, yes, but moreover, all epic failures caused by arrogance on behalf of the aggressor. Custer’s rampant jingoism caused him to assault those Native Americans with only a meager squad of troops. Napoleon’s Napoleon complex pushed him to drive his troops thousands of miles across Eurasia only to face the Red Army in winter. GM’s bravado at an upswing in the market cycle led it to release a hideous crossover with no true target audience. Whether it is some raging lust that blinds us to our faults or an innate flaw that leads us to secretly desire carnage and disorder, pomposity is often the cause of the pockmarks

In William Shakespeare’s tragic drama Hamlet, the hero, Hamlet, appears to be guilty of hubris, an overstepping of the bounds of both his and humanity’s destinies, which ultimately leads to his downfall. Reading the play with a consideration as to how Hamlet’s hubris manifests itself sheds light on why he performs certain actions, and simultaneously enlightens the reader to the dangers of attempting to overstep the confines of humanity. In this essay, I will prove that Hamlet has extreme pride, and is therefore guilty of hubris; in accordance with Harold Skulsky’s assertion in his article, ““I Know My Course”: Hamlet’s Confidence,” Hamlet is hubristic because while he believes that his own soul is impenetrable based on his external

“Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness ‘’, a quote by Martin Luther King. This quote relates to one of the principal themes in Hamlet. As a synonym for selfishness, greed also ties in to the theme of the play. The egocentricity of the character Claudius and his brother King Hamlet had a very large impact on several lives. He is the perfect example of ‘’one must do whatever it takes ‘’.

The first principle of human nature is self preservation: the natural instinct to protect oneself physically and stay away from danger. In the tragedy, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Shakespeare brings new light to the idea of desire to maintain a sense of self,in a deeper more complex aspect of the term. As the play Hamlet delves into severe moral issues such as death and betrayal, Shakespeare demonstrates the importance of establishing a sense of self. The character of Ophelia is often dismissed as a flat, static character. However, through in-depth analysis of her struggles and fate, Ophelia’s as despair and tragedy can ultimately be traced back to one source: her lack of understanding and stability in selfhood. Throughout the play, it is clear that self-preservation plays a critical role in protecting one's identity and values when individuals respond to competing demands; because when the ability to chose is taken away, an individual loses the clarity and sense of purpose from selfhood.

It seems that it is human nature to want to please others, but compromising ones values in order to do so can result in people getting hurt emotionally or physically. In William Shakespeare's Hamlet, the desire to please those in authority overweighs the judgment of many characters. These characters are more interested in pleasing those in power than doing what is in their best interest. This is seen in Polonious' eager attempt to use Ophelia, in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's being coerced into spying on a good friend, and finally in Laertes' all too easy manipulation by Claudius to take revenge on his fathers' death. In all these instances, the characters put their

“Envy, on the contrary, finds a place only where there is no inducement to pity, or rather an inducement to its opposite; and it is just as this opposite that envy arises in the human breast.” (Arthur Schopenhauer. Human Nature). According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, envy is best defined as, “Painful or resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed by another joined with a desire to possess the same advantage.”. Hamlet experienced envy in act III, scene III, when his uncle was repenting. “Now might I do it pat, now he is praying; and now i’ll do’t. And so he goes to heaven and so am I revenged. That would be scann’d. A villain kills my father, and for that, I, his sole son, do same villain send to heaven.” (Ham. III. III. 76-81). In Act III, Scene III of Hamlet, Hamlet envies the power that Claudius now has over him by repenting.

Many scholars classify William Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark as a revenge tragedy, a genre popular during the Elizabethan era (Gainor 41). Shakespeare's tragedy focuses on three sons–Hamlet, Laertes, and Fortinbras–seeking retribution for the unfortunate death of their fathers– King Hamlet, Polonius, and King Fortinbras respectively. In the play, the father-son relationship is the primary motivator for each son's revenge. Because Elizabethan society places a strong emphasis on the relationship between father and son, each son feels obligated to right his father's wrongs. According to Fredric B. Tromly, author of Fathers and Sons in Shakespeare: The Debt Never Promised, “A defining . . . feature of Shakespeare’s

There are many different ways to put karma into words. People say “What goes around comes around” and “You get what you give.” There are many different beliefs, some believe that you get back sevenfold, others believe that you get the equal. Whatever the case, you still want to be as good as you can. In Hamlet karma is a common factor throughout the play. Some examples are when Polonius gets killed when he is spying on what is supposed to be a private meeting between Hamlet and his mother. Laertes gets killed by his own poisoned weapon. Hamlet is also a victim to karma as well as many other characters in this play.

For Hamlet, the world of human experience, feelings, and emotions is not only the scope of his interests and observations but first and foremost, his “workshop” and “laboratory”. In his world, he creates and explores. To explore the human soul, to see the source of the pain and suffering, to show the depth of the feelings, to understand the ethical motivation for people’s actions in all their seeming contradiction, Hamlet sees those as his destiny, his motivations, the reason he was born for. What makes Hamlet special is that throughout the whole play, Hamlet had one goal which is to bring justice and avenge his father’s death, and in order to accomplish that, he drops all his emotions, such as his love for Ophelia and his mother, much so as giving up his own life in the end. He will not pass anyone of his circle of acquaintances without an “emotional impact”, such as jokes or subtle irony.

An Arabian proverb states, “Arrogance diminishes wisdom.” This proverb implies that even a wise man can fall to arrogance. Prince Hamlet faces a problem similar to this in the book The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare. Hamlet’s arrogance is shown through his qualities of indecisiveness, bluntness, and impulsiveness. His arrogance causes problems for Hamlet as he tries to avenge his father’s death.

In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the titular hero and tragic figure of the play constantly finds himself unable to act on the Ghost’s instructions to take revenge on King Claudius despite the compelling reasons he realizes for doing so. The reason for this delay is Hamlet’s tragic flaw – his tendency towards thought and introspection rather than impulse and action. Because of this flaw, Hamlet is unable to ignore the moral aspects of his actions and “thereby becomes the creature of mere meditation, and [he] loses his natural power of action” (Coleridge, 343).

Weight, height, awkwardness or other, societal pressures and standards have people struggling with insecurities and suppressed actions. Humans always have a flaw in themselves that they will repress. With this, they believe it is gone forever until something traumatizing will bring it out. Stress and shock from the event will be so intense that there is no time to consider the societal expectations. In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the main character Hamlet had his father killed and his mother married to his uncle.

William Shakespeare pessimistically argues in his tragic play, Hamlet, that humans’ evil predisposition towards disingenuity leads to the degeneration of the individual due to the severance of relationships and the demise of self-respect. According to Shakespeare, human nature is such that humans misdirect, scheme against, or outright lie to others to further self-serving ends that ultimately do more harm than good. Throughout the play, Shakespeare employs contrasts and metaphors to demonstrate how dishonesty destroys trust and results in the demise of vital human connections with both family and friends. When individuals use deception to satisfy selfish desires, Shakespeare argues that this results in the death of an individual’s peace of mind. He uses personification of the soul and condemning diction to depict how duplicitous practices result in oppressive guilt.

"This above all, to thine own self be true." Hamlet shows that integrity is the most important personal quality to have in a world in which people are often not what they seem." Discuss.