Hamlet ICTW In conveying the contempt the Ghost and Hamlet embrace towards the Queen and Claudius, Shakespeare, in his tragedy Hamlet, integrates Claudius’s need for power in order to irradiate the notion of Claudius’s selfishness and human betrayal. In the passage, the damning diction employed by the Ghost reveals biblical undertones and apprises the reader of the conniving ways of Claudius and the Queen. The ghost describes Claudius through the metaphor of a serpent- evoking a biblical reference Adam and Eve. The Ghost reveals that Claudius murdered him by saying: “The serpent that did sting thy father’s life now wears his crown.” By employing the wording “serpent,” it highlights Claudius’ sneaky ways: slithering about to take over the throne. Claudius purposefully set out to murder his own flesh and blood, which proves his selfishness, similar to the biblical reference of the serpent.
Hamlet makes his first move against King Claudius by telling the actors to play a tragic play by which he can see King Claudius’s reaction. “Oh, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven. It has the eldest primal curse on it—a brother’s murder.” (Act 3, Scene 3, Lines 36-38). Claudius says these lines in despite of the play he has seen and drives him crazy. This is when we know he actually killed Hamlet’s father.
This scene does this in two ways, making the reader sympathise with Hamlet and making the reader feel apathetic toward Claudius. The audience is manipulated to sympathise with Hamlet because he has just learned that his father’s death was no accident as he had presumed. Furthermore, Hamlet has just learned that it was none other than his uncle that killed his father. This is an unimaginable situation and it leaves the reader no other choice than to feel for Hamlet. On the hand, there lies Claudius.
While they argue that Hamlet's problems cannot be simply reduced to the Oedipus complex, Barber and Wheeler state that an understanding of Hamlet "must be consistent with the presence of that complex, for the Freudian explanation clearly works." Emphasizing Hamlet's guilt, which is focused on his father, not his mother, the critics argue that this guilt refers to Hamlet's wish to kill his father, which he cannot do since Hamlet's father is already dead. The wish, Barber and Wheeler explain, is diverted from Hamlet's father to his uncle. Taking another approach to Hamlet's oedipal issues, Janet Adelman (1992) centers on the role of the mother. Adelman illustrates that
Everyone became more cautious and many had lost the trust of foreign societies, even society itself. This concept is modeled by William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, where immense adversity shapes the character of young Hamlet in his search for vengeance in his father’s name. In the play, Hamlet is first confronted with adversity when a ghost explains that his father was murdered by his uncle. This situation shifts his identity and forces the already mourning Hamlet into a deep depression where he is hell bent on revenge. At the start of the play, Shakespeare introduces Claudius as a wise and confidant ruler with no apparent flaw.
The personality traits of insanity and intellectuality also contribute greatly to the death of Hamlet. Hamlet’s tragic flaw is his procrastination. Without a doubt, Hamlet portrays procrastination and indecisiveness multiple times in the play. The ghost of Hamlet’s father visits him in the beginning of the play informing Hamlet that he was murdered by his own brother, Claudius: “The serpent that did sting thy father’s life/ Now wears the crown”(I.v.44,45). Furthermore, Shakespeare exhibits how Hamlet chose to devise a plan of acting mad, rather than avenging his father’s death immediately, progressing to his demise.
While Hamlet is self-conflicting with plans, Laertes is taking action immediately after he knows of his father’s murder. At the end of the play, the similarity between Hamlet and Laretes can be observed by the viewers as Hamlet says “I'll be your foil, Laertes: in mine ignorance your skill shall, like a star i' the darkest night, Stick fiery off indeed" (V.ii.5-7). Hamlet knows that they will be compared to one another in the future. Although Laertes is found to be greater for his courage to take action, Hamlet’s ability to make rational thoughts and planning has been highlighted from this
William Shakespeare uses Hamlet’s first soliloquy to characterise Hamlet in order to captivate the audience and set the stage for the events about to unfold. In the soliloquy, Shakespeare introduces us to the complex, melancholy mind of the protagonist, depicting grief over his father’s death, anger towards his mother, and general weltschmertz. The passage introduces the audience to a truly multifaceted character, not before seen by an Elizabethan audience. Hamlet begins with thoughts of suicide, yet is indecisive since it is forbidden by god. These lines serve two purposes.
Emily Van Bibber Mr. McGinn Shakespeare’s Plays 7 February 2012 The Persona of Hamlet In William Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, Shakespeare portrays Hamlet to be incredibly smart and cunningly witty; however, these characteristics do not define Hamlet. Hamlet’s persona is defined by his conflicted position and inability to make a decision. These defining traits precipitate his procrastination and further his melancholic disposition. Hamlet’s most obvious character flaw is his indecisiveness. Most often, Hamlet makes comments that suggest he is going to seek immediate revenge from his father’s murderer, but he remains stagnant.
Shelley does this to emphasize the death of William and to make the novel even more tragic. Also this is done so that the reader no longer chooses to pity the creature for murdering such a perfect boy. The creatures monstrosity reaches a new level when he frames Justine for William’s death, “I bent over her and placed the portrait securely in one of the folds of her dress” (pg. 128). By doing so, society assumes Justine is accused as the murder due to the evidence that has been placed upon her by the creature.