Mortality in Hamlet

Throughout the play, Hamlet finds himself somewhat obsessed with the idea of death. He is constantly pondering aspects of suicide and life after death. Hamlet’s obsession with the idea of suicide is shown especially in his famous “to be or not to be” soliloquy. He says “to be or not to be-that is the question: whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against the sea of troubles..” He is wondering if it’s better to suffer through the pains and troubles of life, or to just end it all and not have to suffer. Hamlet wants to know if the unknown of after death is better or worse than life itself. His questions of afterlife are the only things keeping him from committing suicide. His fear of afterlife being horrible and life being much better is what is keeping him alive. I think in a way Hamlet wishes he had the courage and dignity to kill himself.. or at least to kill Claudius. He thinks of himself as a coward for failing to do either. This lack of action towards Cladius may have caused Hamlet his own life. Hamlet seems to be obsessed with death in general which leads him to his suicidal ideas. His obsession with death itself is shown when he is first confronted with the ghost and when he is asked about Polonious’ whereabouts. When asked about Polonius Hamlet’s response is “at supper..not where he eats, but where he is eaten. A certain convocation of politic worms are e’en at him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet…”. He claims that Polonius is “In heaven. Send hither to see. If your messenger find him not there, seek him I’ th’ other place yourself. But if indeed, you find him not within this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby.” Along with his obsession with death, which is shown in these quotes from Hamlet, he looks at mortality in an interesting way and it’s as if he’s mocking it. One of Hamlet’s perspectives on death is shown in the graveyard scene when he say “No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither with modesty enough, and likelihood to lead it, as thus: Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth into dust, the dust is earth, of earth we make loam, and why of that loam whereto he was converted might they not stop at a beer-barrel?”. This scene shows Hamlets thoughts about the inevitability of death. He’s talking about the human life cycle and how no matter who we are, no one can escape death. Death is inevitable. Hamlet explores the idea of how we create ourselves to be a certain way, but in the end we all end up the same. This sets up for the scene of Ophelia’s funeral. Ophelia’s way of suicide was based on madness. For her, she wasn’t afraid of the unknown of the afterlife she just wanted to quit suffering in life.

Revenge:

Revenge:

Revenge is what we all seek when someone hurts us or hurts someone close.

Although we all know that revenge is not the best when we harm not think the consequences of our actions only serve our own impulses, the impulse of self-protection or bystanders.

Hamlet to learn that the murderer of his father, was his uncle, the present king, the only thing that goes through your mind and your body was craving for revenge.

Since Hamlet learns that his uncle is the murderer of his father the only thing it does is look for ideas for revenge.

At first he tried to confess that his uncle murdered his father through the use of comments and what he knew about the murder of his father in the way of acting, it rebuilt what happened in one of the theaters to the palace.

Finally, when Hamlet is doing a sword fight, when the queen (Hamlet's mother) is a drink that poisoned the king had prepared for Hamlet, Hamlet does not think and all that writers do is kill the king, the he throws the sword and eventually kills.

Death

William Shakespeare plays the dance of death throughout the play very well in Hamlet. Some can infer that death is just part of the circle of life, and people die all of the time.

It all started when Claudius wanted reign and decided to poison his brother, Hamlet. I, personally, believe that he shouldn't have died to begin with. He was a good king, and pleased his people. But, Claudius was jealous of his brother and wanted everything that he had. Claudius didn't know that once you strike up that game of an eye for an eye, death can come towards you in any time. You just don't expect it. The evidence that we get that king Hamlet is dead, is when the ghost of Hamlet pays a visit with young Hamlet and tells him the story of his death. Telling your son to avenge him is dangerous, too. You can make plenty mistakes when you're full of rage and want to gain revenge on your father's death. Hamlet becomes mad and plays along with people about his madness. He decides to put it off like a coward, and horses around for quite some time, until he conducts a mistake in trying to murder Claudius; he murders Polonius. Polonius probably did have it coming to him, though, because he was somewhat crude to other people. Of course, after his death, his daughter Ophelia goes mad as well and become a psycho. She later drowns herself in a river, in which we do not know if it was purpose suicide or if she fell in the river. Towards the end, Laertes and Claudius come up a plan to avenge Laertes' father's death. Some poison should do it; but their plans run haywire. The poisoned barb hits Hamlet, but also hits Laertes. Oops. First, Gertrude is to fall because she drank the poisoned cup, instead of her son Hamlet because he chose not to drink yet. Claudius gets stabbed by Hamlet by the poisoned sword, and forces him to drink the poisoned wine. Then, full of rage, he finishes off Laertes, but in the end, Hamlet slowly falls to his death. The big question though is this: Did they all deserve to die? Possibly, for their actions they placed within the play. Gertrude slept with her husbands brother in a heartbeat after his death, which pissed off Hamlet. Claudius was a lying jerk to everyone, even to his newly wedded wife. Laertes, on the other hand, wasn't so bad, because he, too, as lost his father, very much so like Hamlet. Polonius wasn't the nicest person of them all, but he was a good father. Hamlet, though, he was pretty crazy. At first, he played the role of being mad, but madness did corrupt him. He put it off and created chaos throughout the kingdom. He is mainly to blame; but they all wouldn't have died if Claudius didn't poison his brother, to begin with.

hamlet

Hamlet

One huge theme in Hamlet is revenge, having this theme in the book it made me think that Revenge can and will make a sane man mad. For example at the start of the play young hamlet jr learns that his fathers death was no accident. Hamlet is told his own uncle had killed his brother to inherit the throne and get in with hamlets mom, the queen. This is told to him by his dads spirit making him swear to avenge his death, but not get the queen involved, Hamlet being a reasonable person doesn’t quit trust this ghost, thinking this story might be trickery by a demon and does some investigating. He finds out the story is true and yet he still doesn’t go and kill Claudius he over thinks it. Hamlet decides to put on an antic disposition and go with the looney act for a while. The whole idea of killing his uncle takes over his mind and can only think of trying to kill him. He becomes truly insane and end up killing Polonius the dad of his lover Ophelia this being a mistake. This then made Ophelia crazy and she unfortunately drown her self. Then the brother of Ophelia, Laretes comes to avenge his fathers and sisters deaths. He dies in the process of trying to kill hamlet by his own poisoning the sword he used to kill hamlet.

justifying death

Death is an every day occurrences but all the deaths in hamlet were not natural or justified. William Shakespeare has written some heartbreaking stories in his day but Hamlet is one of the most tragic. There are ten deaths in Hamlet and not one of them was for the greater good of human society. The first two deaths we infer happen are the demises of Hamlet senior and Fortenbrass senior. King Frotenbrass was killed by Hamlet the first. This was during war time and war regularly can not be justified. Hamlet was in turn killed by his own brother! This murder was in the queerest way, Claudius ( Hamlets brother) pored deadly poison into Hamlets ear. Because Claudius committing such unjust murder, Hamlet senior’s soul was forced to bear the shellacking of the unholy whip. The only death that was not a murder was Ophelia, she killed her self. In most of the world including the setting of the book suicide in frowned upon. She did not receive a royal burial because of this. There was no reason for her to kill her self, she lost a father but every one losses a father and that could be another theme to hamlet.

All the murders in Hamlet are out of revenge. Revenge can not be justified, killing someone out of pain can not help your self and will only cause others pain.The play starts with revenge and it a happens all the way through. The ghost(Hamlet senior) tells of his death to Hamlet Jr. and wants him to seek revenge on his brother. In this case if Hamlet Jr. just went and killed his Uncle all other deaths could have been avoided, but Hamlet did not have to kill Claudius he could have just accused him of murder and over took the thorn.

There is not a death in hamlet that can be justified and that is my theme of hamlet.

Hamlets Madness

By putting on an antic disposition of madness, hamlet really becomes mad. Hamlet says he is pretending to be mad, but in certain ways he really becomes mad. You could argue that a mad person couldn't organize “the mouse trap” but then what about when he walks into Ophelia’s room all whacked out. I think he wants to hide his madness but he can’t hide everything. He even confesses to being both mad and sane; when he talks to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern he says he isn't really mad. But when he confronts Laertes he says his is mad indeed. So through out the book he tries to bamboozle us. But also when he beats Laertes at fencing we think no mad man could be so skilled at fencing. I think that at the beginning hamlet has no traits of madness but as he keeps pretending to become mad he gets some traits of madness. But then we can compare him to Ophelia’s true madness. Ophelia is actually mad after her father’s death, and hamlets madness doesn't even compare to her. Her madness leads to her drowning her self and before that she is kept in a padded room walking around singing. Hamlet can still function with no problems and organized plans to hoodwink Claudius. It might be that hamlet is very mad but knows how to deal with it. Hamlet completes many devious plans through out the book, like the big one of pretending to be mad, organizing the mousetrap leading Guildenstern and Rosencrantz to their deaths. So if he is mad he is still very crafty. But through out his speeches in the book to when he dies at the end I think he wanted to die in order to escape his own madness.

Hamlet’s Fate

Destiny and fate are very similar. It can lead to glories victories or to sudden death. Fate is a mystery, and it’s our quest to find out what it is. Hamlet was determined to find his destiny, no matter what it was he will revel it. Ever step he made was recorded; everything that had happened love, craziness, revenge, sorrow, death was for a reason. Even if Hamlet was awkward, he was very wise as well. He understood between life and death, glory and honor. He says “Now whether it be Bestial oblivion or some craven scruple of thinking too precisely on th’ event a thought witch, quartered, hath but one part wisdom” – “ Rightly to be great is not to stir without great argument, But greatly to find quarrel in straw when honor’s at the stake. How stand I, then, that have father killed, a mother stained, And excitements of my reason and my blood…”

Hamlets’ troubles got the best of him when he went mad for a while and accidently killed Polonius, his actions lead him to his own death. He understood death very well “We fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service-two dishes but to one table. That’s the end.”

There are many instances in Hamlet when we can see that William Shakespear belived in karma. We can see this in most of the charactors, more in some than in others. And it is the idea of what you do comes back to you. But, it seemes to only be your bad actions. We have direct conformation of karma from a few charators. One is Laertes, he is angered with Hamlet and plots to kill him with Claudius. He just so happens to have bought a verry potent potion while he was in france. He and Hamlet were to have a fencing match with a poisioned raiper, used by Laertes. One scrach can kill a man and no medicine can help them when Laertes is on the floor dieing he gives a verry important line. "As a woodcock to mine own springe" This is support of karma because he is saying like he was caught in his own trap like a bird caught in its own springe. This is like haveing a boomarang you dont know is a boomarang and you throw it hopeing to hit something and it comes right back to you when you least expect it. He continues saying " I am justly killed with mine own treachery" That is direct proof of karma. this is saying th We also see an instanceat he is with his own treachery of trying to kill Hamlet he was killed.
Annother instance of karma is with Hamlet and Ophelia. The at the begining of the scene when Ophelia spurns Hamlet by giving him his letters back. When he gazes upon Ophelia he says " Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remembered" he is esentualy saying alas there is my true love, and he is remembering all the time they have had together. Then she spurns him by giving him his letters back and that upsets him this is stage one of his love leaving him. When Hamlet accadentaly kills Polonius, Ophelia goes truely mad. And in her madness accadentaly kills herself by falling into the lake and drowning. the greatest thing you can take from someone is their life. Next would be to take someones lover from them. So in the act of killing Polonius he lost his lover so again karma is playing a role in Hamlet.

madness

Is hamlet truly mad? A question that has been debated for many years. Many would say that he is mad in this story, but that is with out taking a deeper look in to the story. when we look at the story from begging to end in depth it is hard to tell if he is actually mad or if it is all an act. Hamlet has his moments of true greatness but he also has his moments where he seems insane to say the least.

people believe that the cause of hamlets madness comes from when he sees his fathers ghost ans learns that he had been murdered by his uncle. Many would truly go mad after having this happen to them but that is not the case with Hamlet. After Hamlet swears revenge for his father he says "As i perchance hereafter shall meet think to put an antic disposition on". This Quote is evidence that hamlet isn't really mad and he is just going to act mad for his own benefit.

The next place that we see hamlet isn't mad and we see one of his brightest moments is when he has the players act out the scene of hamlets father murder. If hamlet was actually mad he would have not come up with this brilliant plan to catch his uncle. Now that Hamlet know that what the ghost said was true he can go on with plan and carry out revenge for his father and keep his antic disposition.

Revenge

Throughout Hamlet revenge is a very frequent topic. Revenge is first brought up in the play when Hamlet's dead father comes to him as a ghost and tells him "thy serpent that did sting thy fathers life now wears his crown," after Hamlet finds out about this he tells his father "it is adieu adieu remember me. i have sworn it."

Later on in the play when Hamlet is in Claudius's room with his mother he mistake Polonius for Claudius and stabs him through the curtain. When Laertes arrives to Denmark and finds out about his fathers death, and Ophelia's madness him and Claudius make a plan to get revenge on Hamlet.

In Shakespeare's "Hamlet" the main character, Hamlet, fakes his own madness, in order to execute his revenge plans.

There is proof when he talks to Horatio, he seems perfectly sane, as he can trust his closest friend. However, around others he fakes madness, so as to not spoil his plot to kill Claudius.

Some may argue that when only Hamlet sees the ghost within his mothers chamber, this proves his madness, however, the ghost may have chosen to only be seen by Hamlet. His mother was already freaking out enough, and the ghost may have pushed her over the edge.

Though many different events almost every character in hamlet goes mad.

hamlet went mad after he saw his dead fathers ghost and if that wasn't the cause of hamlets madness then the act of murder was. Before poloniuses murder hamlet did pretend that he was mad but some times he wasn't pretending and I believe that ophilia was the cause of some of these fits of madness. seeing his dead father got him half way to madness but ophilya pushed him over the edge some times, but then after the murder of polonius and being sent off to England and being marked for dead by claudius sent him into full time madness.

claudius's gilt, over killing his brother, is the main cause for his madness hamlets behaver and the fact that hamlet wanted to kill him just gave that extra push.

one of my favorite phrases is "madness is like gravity all it takes is a little push.