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Essay 2 On Hamlet: Acts I-V
Hamlet has what one critic (Wilson Knight) has called a “death infected” imagination, always dwelling on the pointlessness of life. Far from having an uplifting philosophical or poetical nature, he is morbidly obsessed with the fact that he can find no adequate reason for living in the world.
With this in mind, show four examples in which Hamlet dwells on death. Explain the context for each example. In addition, explain how your examples prove or disprove that Hamlet can find no adequate reason for living in the world.

The tragedy of Hamlet by William Shakespeare is a very complex play in which we witness murder, deception, betrayal, and absurdity all wrapped together in an emotional array of baffling events. Hamlet’s life comes to a halt when his father passes away and his mother remarries so quickly. Hamlet becomes very suspicious and this sparks the beginning to an astonishing and anomalous ending. Because of the hardships Hamlet is bombarded with he is faced with making decisions that most people don’t even fathom in their entire lives. While taking this into consideration we see that Hamlet has a legitimate foundation to “dwell on the pointlessness of life” because of the cluster of wretched events that await his retaliation.
In the very first act we see that Hamlet already feels overwhelmed with the whole situation of the death of his father and the remarriage of his mother. Hamlet is left alone in scene two and here he expresses his emotion about how he really feels towards Claudius and the decision making of his mother. He is very unsure of what to do and relieves his anger by insulting both his mother and Claudius because he believes his father will soon be forgotten.
“Like Niobe, all tears-why she, (even she)/ (O God, a beast that wants discourse of reason/ Would have mourned longer!), married with my uncle,
My father’s brother, but no more like my father/ Than I to...