Hamlet increasingly gets angrier and angrier with himself as he keeps talking, and his anger turns to Claudius. Hamlet is now angry and self-loathing. He calls himself a “scullion” which means the lowest of the servants. He tells his brain to start working and gets an idea: to watch Claudius’ reaction to the modified version of The Mousetrap to confirm or deny his guilt about the King’s murder, which is the fourth part of Hamlet’s soliloquy. In the soliloquy, Hamlet is at first upset with himself about finding ways to avoid avenging his Father’s murder, like his spirit in ghost form told him to.
From the start of the play Hamlet mourns his father’s death and is in stasis. By the end of the last soliloquy, Hamlet takes a major step forward in his psyche and willingness to initiate action. The first soliloquy takes place in Act 1, Scene II, in which Hamlet discusses his remorse towards life. Hamlet wishes that his “too solid flesh would melt” (I.ii.133) and that if he was not restrained by God s laws, he would commit suicide. Though saddened by his father’s untimely death, Prince Hamlet also expresses clear disgust for his mother, Gertrude, for marrying his uncle, Claudius, only a few months after his own father’s death.
The full conflict of which he feels and keeps concealed within himself is not explained. Some insight into Hamlet’s true feelings are revealed however, through his soliloquies and asides. Although Hamlet mourns his father’s death, we see that the source of his depression lies in his mother’s hasty marriage. This has turned his world into “... an unweeded garden/ That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature/ Possess it, merely” (I.ii.135-137). While he accumulates more and more evidence of Claudius’ obvious guilt, he constantly returns to the theme of his mother’s remarriage, a source of pain equally as unbearable as the circumstances of his father’s death.
In this soliloquy, the audience sees his depression and grief over the death of his father coupled with his incredulity at the ‘most wicked speed’ with which his mother has remarried. Here, Shakespeare is already showing the audience what is going on in Hamlet’s mind. He is already preoccupied with grief and suicide: HAMLET: ‘O that this too too sullied flesh would melt… Or that the Everlasting had not fixed His canon ’gainst self-slaughter.’ Language like ‘O God’ and ‘Heaven and earth, must I remember?’ give an impression of misery and despair. This is effective in showing exactly the onset of Hamlet’s state of mind. Shakespeare is suggesting that Hamlet’s is already a troubled mind, thus the audience is already aware of the burdens Hamlet suffers.
Lear also demonstrates his awareness that he is losing his mind when he thinks about the pain his daughters put him through: “On such a night as this! O Regan, Goneril, Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave all—Oh, that way madness lies. Let me shun that. No more of that” Edgar’s “Madness” is different from King Lear’s. Edgar has to convince others of his insanity in order to avoid being captured and executed.
According to Brown, “The dramatist depicts incidents which arouse pity and fear for the protagonist [Antigone], then during the course of the action, he resolves the major conflicts, bringing the plot to a logic and foreseeable conclusion (Brown, para 5). The tragic hero in Antigone is Creon. Tragic heroes are not all good and not all bad. Creon suffers a great deal due to his tragic flaw and destructive pride. Creon believes the gods make him suffer the loss of his wife and son as punishment for his pride.
Betrayal rears its ugly head in more ways than one in a tale about two men blinded by false acts of love. King Lear wanted to divide the kingdom among his three daughters. He planned to give up the responsibilities of government and spend his old age visiting his children. He then commanded his daughters to say which of them loved
Shakespeare uses Hamlet`s hatred towards his mother to establish the betrayal Hamlet is feeling, and to acknowledge the fractured state of Hamlet`s family due to Gertrude`s actions and decisions. Not only did Gertrude betray her own son by marrying Claudius but she also betrayed her former husband, Elder Hamlet. Alone, Hamlet talks to the ghost of Elder Hamlet who expresses his disappointment in Gertrude, calling her an “adulterate beast” (1.5.42), meaning she has
For these reasons Ophelia is sympathetic to Hamlet, even as he lashes out at her, "O, help him, you sweet heavens” (1351)! Hamlet is projecting his anger at his mother, Gertrude, on to Ophelia. Because of his intense love for her, Hamlet believes that she will almost certainly betray him just as his mother betrayed his father. Hamlet's love for his mother makes her deceit that much more painful to him. Ophelia symbolizes what Hamlet once believed his mother to be.
He sins against his whole family and by thinking that love can be quantified. And as it turns out, Lear isn’t only separating his family but power and responsibility as well. His very unpredictable, easily aggravated temper causes him to act wrongly and irrationally towards Cordelia, his favorite daughter who, he believes has betrayed her. Lear cannot understand that anyone’s, let alone his daughter’s, love for him could be ‘nothing’. I think pride, anger and greed for power prompted Lear to make the decision of giving up the kingdom to his malicious, hateful and ungrateful daughters, Regan and Cordelia.