Foil Characters in Hamlet

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Foil Characters in Shakespeare’s Hamlet By : Sassi Saddam Outline : • Introduction • Hamlet • Foil Characters in Hamlet • Conclusion I) Introduction : William Shakespeare is the most read, studied and famous English playwright. The majority of his plays share one very important aspect which allows them to be considered masterpieces: Rich and deep characters. Shakespeare’s characters are usually deep, because he takes the time to develop them throughout the plays; they are more real, less predictable, less linear in their behaviour. That is one characteristic that takes Shakespearean Drama one step away from Classic Drama where the plot and characters, as brilliant as they might be, were most often Manichean. This brings us to another trait these characters share: They are incredibly rich; their unpredictability and randomness makes it easy to make them behave in almost any way, his heroes are not super and omnipotent people, his antagonists are not the devil himself, hence, there is black and white, good and evil everywhere in Shakespearean Drama. This point opens the range in which Shakespeare developed his characters, making them mysterious and interesting. Be it in his comedies, his historical plays or his tragedies, Shakespeare offers Characters that are easy to understand for they are less ideal and more real and human, easy to identify to, however, they are definitely not easy to analyse. This paper is about the kind of characters mentioned above and their use in one specific play: Hamlet. II) Hamlet: The most famous non-classical theatre play, the most famous dramatic character, the most famous literary quotations; Hamlet, is more than a Drama, it is an ogre in literature. The main reason for such a reputation, such an aura, is most

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