Hamlet's Character Sketch

473 Words2 Pages
Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet is one of the most famous plays ever written. A tragedy is a play in which the most important characters die or end their lives unhappily. These people are often great kings or princes who, because of some fault in their character, may be partly responsible for their fate. Hamlet is a play about revenge, a popular theme by the time Shakespeare wrote this play. The people in this story are Hamlet – Prince of Denmark, the late King Hamlet of Denmark (Hamlet’s father), King Claudius (Hamlet’s uncle), Queen Gertrude (Hamlet’s mother), Ophelia (Hamlet’s love), Polonius (Ophelia’s father), Laertes (Ophelia’s brother) and Horatio (Hamlet’s friend). Hamlet is an emotional young man, deeply disillusioned by his mother’s marriage to his uncle and full of grief at his father’s sudden death. He thinks that the world is “weary, stale, flat and unprofitable … like an unweeded garden”. Hamlet is very careful for his people, he loves his country and doesn’t think that Claudius could be a good King for Denmark. Claudius is devious and manipulative, except for the one moment of fearful regret. All he cares about is protecting himself. Hamlet is a noble and sensitive hero, an ideal Renaissance gentleman. His sensitivy is seen in his horror over his mother’s too rapid remarriage to the new King. His humility is seen in his love for Ophelia. Hamlet cares little for the fact that Ophelia is socially beneath him. The revelation by his father’s ghost that he was murdered by Claudius aggravates Hamlet’s distress. The ghost’s demand to “revenge his terrible and most unnatural murder” and to not let “the royal bed of Denmark” become “a couch for luxury and damned incest” thrusts upon Hamlet a duty to take extreme action. Hamlet gives up an ideal opportunity for killing Claudius because he cannot bring himself to strike at Claudius while he is kneeling at prayer.
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