Hamlet Character Analysis for book and 2 movies versions
1In the original version of the famous play Hamlet, written by William Shakespeare, the character Hamlet, Prince of Denmark son of the late King Hamlet and nephew of the present king, is a melancholy protagonist and the main character of the play. This is also the case in two other movie versions of the play, one directed by Francis Zefferilli, and another directed by Kenneth Branagh. 2Hamlet has this same main characteristic, and additional emotions, that branch off of this main characteristic such as depression and anger, in both movie versions of the play. He is a very emotional character throughout all of the different productions. It is his stage of emotion that notably alters from Shakespeare's version, to Zefferilli's version, and to Branagh's version, and these distinct stages of emotion constitute incontestable physical responses towards other characters in the play. In Shakespeare's version, in the beginning of the story, Hamlet's character was struggling with the sudden marriage of his mother, Gertrude, to his uncle, Claudius, a month after his father is death. He is disturbed at the speed with which his mother has recovered from mourning her dead husband to marry the new king. He expres
Hamlet finds himself unceasingly at war with his own hesitancy and indecisiveness. As if to provoke himself into action, he tends to describe himself and his bizarre situation in very melodramatic terms. Even so, Hamlet's attitude is more than an act or masquerade, more than just a convenient maneuver by which he tries to persuade his own unassured will into action. For Hamlet finds himself confronted with a genuine problem--the murder of his father by his uncle and the marriage of his mother to his uncle. He struggles to decide between a life of revenge and action, and a life of analyzation and acceptance of fate. Because of the ghost, life has no meaning for him, he has no sympathy for taking other's lives. To him, killing them did not matter, revenge was all that became important to him. Hamlet says, " I must be cruel only to be kind"(a.3, sc.4). He proves this by sacrificing the lives of everyone in his way, and all that wronged him, such as Polonius, Ophelia, Laertes and his former friends Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and his his biggest sacrifice, his mother. In Branagh's version, every scene is virtually the same as the Shakespearean version. 4Every act and line that is in the play, is in the movie, which qualifies it as the closest version to the original. The only major difference being the time period that the movie is set in, the nineteenth century. Horatio then arrives to tell Hamlet of the 'apparition' that was seen the night before. A figure resembling the Old Hamlet - "these hands are not more like" - appeared outside the castle. This presents concern for Hamlet because he feels that there has been some 'foul play' to cause the appearance of this spirit, as in the Shakespeare version. In Branagh's movie production, Hamlet begins to look through a book about demons, implying that he hypothesizes something unpleasant has taken place. Hamlet insists that he see
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Approximate Word count = 1280
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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