The play illuminates how difficult it is to search for truth in an ambiguous world Within Hamlet, each character uses language in different ways to create their own sense of truth and to manipulate those around them to believing their truth. It is in this that Hamlet realises that language can be broken down to show that in fact it is meaningless, and is used to put on a façade. The character of Horatio uses language to tell stories, and is often used to provide the objective truth in the play as he appears very sure of his interpretations, however this can be contrasted by Hamlet who speaks in riddles and puns to show the degradation of language. Claudius, as a Machiavellian leader, manipulates language to seem trustworthy to the other characters. Young Hamlet breaks down language to show that it cannot be trusted for the objective truth.
A short essay cannot investigate all instances of this occurrence in all works of the author, but could provide the reader with the major categories. This way, deception will become more recognizable and appreciated as a major element and a spine of the particular story. In two of the most famous Shakespeare’s plays where deception appears as a building block of the story are Hamlet and Othello. In Hamlet the prince uses deception as a tool to distract attention and hide better his strange but vital moves and activities necessary to gather enough information regarding Claudius. The deception comes in the form of fake madness.
187-8.) This pretense of madness Shakespeare borrowed from the earlier versions of the story. The fact that he has made it appear like real madness to many critics today only goes to show the wideness of his knowledge and the greatness of his dramatic skill. In the play the only persons who regard Hamlet as really mad are the king and his henchmen, and even these are troubled with many doubts. Polonius is the first to declare him mad, and he thinks it is because Ophelia has repelled his love.
This is simple to see at times, however the audience is often found questioning to themselves if aspects of the play are in fact truth in Hamlet’s universe or if they just appear that way. This presents the theme of appearance versus reality, the struggle between the truth, and what falsely appears as such. In order for the main forces in the play to achieve goals or preserve order, they must all hide behind masks of false reality. Main characters who display this often include Polonius, Claudius, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern, and of course Hamlet. What we see throughout the play and primarily at the final scene is the unveiling of everyone’s true motives, removing these masks and ultimately resulting in each four character’s demise, which makes this a true tragedy.
I heard many things in hell.” Through his denial of the hold lunacy has on him, the Narrator establishes the very nature of his madness. His contradictions’ such as denial of being afflicted by the disease, then the very next thought is to defend the nature of the illness by praising it for moulding his senses is evidence towards his increasing madness and the inevitable doom of the Narrator. The Mad Man’s seemingly unprovoked rage towards the Old Man is blamed upon his dead, hazy eye. The Narrator in a fit of Madness trying to explain his actions, claims his motivation; “One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture – a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold: and so by degrees – very gradually – I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.” The Narrator again proves his madness through his apparent lack of solid intent coupled with his explanation of the rage within him.
What people might not expect or catch on to is that the entire of the play is full of dramatic irony! What Shakespeare has done is given the audience a false sense of security, (pause), he does this by making it look as if there is going to be a good ending, by having make the Friars plan seem so fool proof that it deceives the audience, into thinking that there is going to be a good outcome,(Pause)that is until he turns it on to its head and has it so that both Romeo and Juliet die, this is caused by the actions of some of the other characters in the play, for example: when Tybalt kills Mercutio and Romeo kills Tybalt in revenge. If Tybalts act of killing Mercutio had not happened, then Romeo would not have been banished for slaying Tybalt, and the letter would have made its way to Romeo. This is what
Hamlet and Claudius contradict one another in a variety of ways making them enemies throughout the play. Prince Hamlet is perceived as the protagonist in the play for many reasons, one of them being because he displays an elegant intensity in everything he does, making him very amiable to the audience. When Hamlet is truly indecisive, brutal, revengeful, and hateful. When Hamlet speaks to others, his words are thought out to be hurtful to whomever he is speaking to. “You should not have believ'd me, for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it.
The soliloquy can be broken down into three sections: Hamlet’s consideration of the player’s acting ability, his self-berating for being cowardly and doing nothing, and his resolve to stage a play to ‘catch the conscience of the King’. The notion of the revenge tragedy is a very complex issue in Hamlet, as it both adheres to and breaks away from the conventions of this genre. Some notable conventions of dramatic delay, the degeneration of the hero, and the play-within-a-play are utilized by Shakespeare. In this excerpt alone, the concept of the Mousetrap is included in the final rhyming couplet – “The play’s the thing / Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.”, the hero, Hamlet, breaks down his own self and sees himself as cowardice and feminine, which he ultimately blames for his inability to act – his delay. The use of characterization in this excerpt is crucial to the demonstation to the inaction of Hamlet, as well as the theme of illusions and reality.
The Roles of guilt, madness and suicide within the play Hamlet Hamlet is a great example of a story to display the themes of guilt, madness, and suicide. The three themes are used are very obviously displayed in the plot throughout the main characters actions. This is a very negative play since none of the themes above are not positive ones which can help you infer how the characters and their roles will be. In the era that Hamlet was written much before Hamlet madness was a very widely used themes in many stories and poems. Examples of madness would be found through Hamlet’s searches for honesty and his hate towards cheating and deception.
In premise, it would be impossible to not give a definition of jealousy in general, or more specifically in the particular context of this play. Jealousy is “the state of feeling envy towards someone for his or her accomplishments and/or possessions.” To discern between the two main characters we need to look at the origins of their jealousy, and what this acute feeling is motivated by. Iago is certainly less jealous than Othello. There are a couple of ideas and examples that prove this. Iago’s jealousy is explicit only at the very beginning of the play, when he demonstrates his resentment towards Othello, for giving the position of Lieutenant to Michael Cassio.