Hamlet
Hamlet (c. 1600) is perhaps the most famous of all the tragedies created by William Shakespeare. The main character - Hamlet - may be the most complex and controversial character any playwright has ever placed onstage. Hamlet's erratic behavior poses a question: is he being rational in his acts and sacrificing himself for the "greater good" or is he simply mad? How and why does Hamlet move from one state of mind to the other? What significance does this have for the play? Throughout the play Hamlet goes through several different stages of life, constantly being in a tortured mental state, caught between love, grief, and vengeance. His different states of mind are the result of his controversial personality and his ability to objectively analyze any situation. Over the centuries there have been a multitude of different explanations for Hamlet's behavior. One of the views is that Hamlet is simply a victim of circumstances; the other presents him as a beautiful but ineffectual soul who lacked the willpower to avenge his father. Hamlet can also be viewed as something close to a manic-depressive whose melancholy moods, as his failure to take revenge continues, deepened into self-contempt. His disturbing gift of laughing at
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes, My father's brother, but no more like my father Hamlet's different states of mind are essential to the play. Through those changes Shakespeare shows the reader the birth, growth, and demise of Hamlet's character. From the beginning Hamlet faces several questions -- he must decide whether to avenge his father or not, and if so, how. Those are not easy questions. By showing Hamlet's uncertainty and inability to make a decision throughout the play, Shakespeare makes him so human that the reader starts to wonder whether Hamlet did actually exist. Also Shakespeare shows the reader that for a man with Hamlet's ideals, the world is out of joint with itself, a world in which he can only hope for perfection, but never achieve it. A little month, or ere those shoes were old
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1743
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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