relativism on Hamlet
The speaker of this statement is Hamlet. It appears in a conversation with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern who visited Hamlet by Claudius’s order to spy on him. In this statement Hamlet is saying that because “good or bad” (relativism) depends on how people think, there is no mutual concept of “good or bad”. To Hamlet whether the world is to be seen as a full of confines and lies or not, it all depends on what people think about the world they are living. To Hamlet consequence of contemplation about what is right or wrong, or good or bad seems to be more important than the action itself. Action without the sense of morality is undesirable. Toward the end of the play Hamlet stop thinking about the validity of his motivation toward his action, and decide to let things go so much as “let God do the thinking” idea.Hamlet relates his action with relativism (being or seeming) in “To be, or not to be: that is the question: whether ‘tis nobler in the mind of suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms and arrows of outrageous fortune, and by opposing end them” (3.1.57). Here he is posing two choices
Toward the end of the play Hamlet seems to have resolved all doubts and concern about what action to take. He seems to learn to go beyond the idea of relativism. The statement is “since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is’t to leave betimes? Let be”(5.2.196). He is no longer fear death or what may await him after death, and no longer restrained by conscience. In my opinion Hamlet’s idea of relativism (no mutual concept of relativism) seems extreme and unbalanced. There should be some common ground that all human being can agree to whatever the issue is; right or wrong, or good or bad. Without the mutual concept of relativism we wouldn’t be able to relate to someone, and there wouldn’t be any control mechanisms (Government, Law, etc) in our society. What Hamlet had been through in his life made him lose faith in human, and the world surrounding him. Thus, the mutual concept of what’s good or bad doesn’t have much importance to him, or he just ignored the fact of it as in “and indeed it goes so heavily with my desposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me asterile promontory; this most excellent canopy
Some common words found in the essay are:
Hamlet Claudius’s, Government Law, , mutual concept, mutual concept relativism, concept relativism, Rosencrantz Guildenstern, arrows outrageous fortune, play hamlet, “good bad”, action action, idea relativism, depends people, arrows outrageous, outrageous fortune, wrong bad,
Approximate Word count = 796
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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