Trusting Horatio In Hamlet

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Trusting Horatio In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Horatio is left with a task of sharing the truth of all the unfortunate events that have taken place throughout the play, since he is the only one left alive. The question arises as to if Horatio is qualified and trustworthy enough to tell the story without having to change things up. Even though Horatio is not present as much, he proves himself to be levelheaded, courageous, trustworthy, and always keeps his word which allows the reader to only assume that he would definitely not change up the story Hamlet has asked him to share with everyone. Hamlet is a play that takes place in Denmark. The king, Hamlet’s father, has died and Claudius, his uncle, has married Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude,…show more content…
The death of Polonious of course pushes Ophelia overboard and she goes crazy and dies in the river. It’s not too long before Laertes (Ophelia’s brother, Polonious’ son) shows up to avenge both his father’s and sister’s deaths. Claudius and Laertes both come up with this so called brilliant plan that will kill Hamlet, but the plan backfires on them. This plan not only mortally wounds Hamlet, but also kills Gertrude and Laertes. And right before Hamlet is about to die he kills Claudius and leaves Horatio with a task, which is to tell everyone the true story of what happened throughout the past nine months. Within Hamlet, Horatio often displays how courageous and levelheaded he is. Horatio is such a solid character that leaving him to tell the story is almost perfect. At the beginning of Act I, Horatio shows how levelheaded he really is by wanting to see the ghost for his own eyes. When walking up to Barnardo, Marcellus states “Horatio says…show more content…
He also shows a trait of caring towards Hamlet because he shows how worried he gets when Hamlet goes over to meet and talk to the ghost. He keeps his word to Hamlet plenty of times, the first being about the ghost. When Horatio tells Hamlet about the ghost, Hamlet makes Horatio swear by his sword because he doesn’t want anyone to know about the ghost or his plan to take revenge. Hamlet says to Horatio, “Never make known what you have seen tonight” (Ham 1.5.145). Hamlet trusts Horatio to keep this secret and that is exactly what Horatio does, he keeps his word with Hamlet and doesn’t tell a single soul, as he should. Towards the end of the play Hamlet is slowly dying and Horatio says “…I’m more like an ancient Roman than a corrupt modern Dane./Some of this liquor’s still left in the goblet” (Ham 5.2.307-308). Hamlet replies with, “As thou'rt a man,/Give me the cup. Let go! By heaven, I’ll have ’t./O God, Horatio, what a wounded name,/Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me!/If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart/Absent thee from felicity a while,/And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain/To tell my story” (Ham 5.2.308-315). Horatio tries to kill himself with the poisoned drink just like Gertrude did on accident but Hamlet orders him to stay alive specifically to tell the true story of what had happened those past nine months in Denmark. This shows exactly how well of a listener Horatio

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