Hamlet and the Hero’s journey
Hamlet so much related to the Hero’s journey design which was adopted by Joseph Campbell’s monomyth journey and the two are in fact so inseparable. When analyzing the play Hamlet, one thinks that Campbell was using the plays so as to make the theory. This is a character arc and which is divided into five -act structure and which goes up to twelve steps.
The ordinary world is the place where the character exists before he is called, and he is not aware of anything going on around him. Hamlet is in school in Germany where he is studying when he is being summoned to go back to Denmark. We assume that he was doing better in Germany as a student until he is called back to his home country.
Campbell, the hero is now
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In the same way, Hamlet is faced with a lot of challenges in a series. It all starts with Polonius, who was spying on Hamlet with his mother in the queen’s chamber and Hamlet stabs him. When King Claudius learns about it, he punishes Hamlet by sending him to exile in England. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are sent by the king to make sure that Hamlet is handed to the King of England for execution, but he learns about it and arranges for their hanging. Then, Ophelia dies out of depression over his father’s death and Hamlet’s behavior, and her brother dies while trying to wrestle with Hamlet. All these are challenges which block him from carrying out his mission.
Campbell, this is the stage where the hero faces a grave danger. He may face fears and doubts again. Hamlet is faced with another challenge of having to wrestle with Ophelia’s brother, who has a poisoned sword. However, he has made a decision to face any situation provided he avenges the death of his
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Hamlet rests in peace in his death, having got what he wanted. Although he does not live to see it, the society had got a different leadership which was free of malicious people like Claudius. The play is not a comedy where the hero lives. In Hamlet, the hero dies but he dies a hero having achieved his goal and the reason why he was called.
The climax where the hero has to almost encounter death. In Hamlet, things are different as he is poisoned by the sword which is used to kill Laertes. However, he is able to kill Laertes before Laertes kills him. He is also able to kill Claudius who has prepared poison for him. As the audience watches this part, they have fears that Hamlet will take the poison which Claudius has prepared (Bright Summaries, 2015). According to Claudius, if he does not die with the sword by Laertes, he will die with poison.
This is the last stage in Campbell’s Hero’s journey and it involves the hero going home with his reward. In Hamlet’s case, going home can mean death. He dies but not before he is at total peace and with a sense of satisfaction that he has avenged the death of his father and he has taken the crown from Claudius and given it to Prince Fortinbras according to his wish because he is going to die. All his enemies have been killed and defeated and this is a sort of success for him, even in his death. If it were a comedy, we could have seen Hamlet becoming the next king but
Death seems to be the biggest mystery in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. From the start of the play with the Ghost of Hamlets father appearing to avenge his death, to Hamlet’s most popular “To be or Not to be” soliloquy, and to the plays bloody conclusion; the uncertainty of death seems to always be on our protagonist mind. Death has become a recurring theme throughout this whole play. His thoughts of death range from death in a spiritual matter, the truth and uncertainty in what death may bring, and the question of his own death.
Hamlet’s success is directly impacted by the conflicts he has with Claudius and Laertes that all lead to moral corruption which ultimately leads to his downfall. Firstly, the conflict between Hamlet and his stepfather, Claudius, shows how their family is flawed causing
Hamlet is a powerful story of love, life, revenge, and death. The themes within the play are written to live on for eternity. It is difficult to fully and accurately represent a play as great as this one. The movie that we watched in class did not wholly represent the wonders and the magnitude of the themes within Shakespeare’s work.
We see his relation to death and how he is intrigued by it, in his soliloquy in Act one scene 2 he says the lines”o, that this too sullied flesh would melt” signifying his sense of wanting to disappear. The re-marriage of Gertrude with Claudius, his Uncle taking over as king instead of him, makes hamlet feel a
He was to the point where he thought it would just be easier to die than to live with all these struggles. Hamlet’s uncle Claudius killed his father which put a huge burden on his shoulders because he loved his father so much. What made it even worse was his mom, Gertrude, ended up marrying Claudius short after King Hamlet 's death. After the king was murdered, Hamlet saw his father’s “ghost” which told him that Claudius was in fact the one that killed him and that he wanted Hamlet to seek revenge for him by killing Claudius, but not to punish his mother for remarrying. He said it is not his place to do so and that heaven will judge her when it comes time.
Introduction: From time immemorial a lot of ink has been spilled on the concept of traumatic psychology developed in men. People have long proclaimed, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” (www.childtrauma.com). Psychological wound brings experiences and help people to grow more strong. Sometimes traumatic growth doesn’t happen naturally, it also can be hereditary.
Like many things, Hamlet is intelligent and honorable, but his indecisiveness is the cause of his tragic downfall. In the play Hamlet, William Shakespeare portrays that Hamlet is very incapable of finishing the task at hand. Throughout the drama Hamlet faces many trials and tribulations due to his late father Hamlet, who was murderously killed by Claudius. His inability to kill Claudius and himself is one grand flaw of an epic hero. After King Hamlets passing, Hamlet entered an unknown state of mind that not only feared others for his wellbeing, but also feared himself.
Death is one of the most prominent themes in Hamlet, appearing in different forms. Shakespeare displays death through the suicide of Ophelia, Hamlet’s own thoughts and eventual suicide, and the murder of King Hamlet and Polonius. Hamlet displays suicidal tendencies throughout the play through his soliloquies. The first time that Hamlet contemplates committing suicide is when Gertrude and Claudius tell him that he has to stay in Denmark in Act one. “Oh, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew, or that the Everlasting had not fixed his canon ‘gainst self-slaughter!
Throughout the play, Hamlet is forced to make difficult decisions; as he is conflicted with almost every decision he makes, his uncertainty and unsophisticated thoughts will eventually lead to his downfall. Man vs. Self is a common theme in Shakespeare’s work, and Hamlet is no exception. The most distinct example of this sophisticated concept is Hamlet himself. When analyzed thoroughly, Hamlet is his greatest obstacle and enemy. The earliest of his internal conflicts is when his mother married his uncle, Claudius, in such a short window of time after his father’s death.
Like his Greek predecessors, Hamlet also thinks up an elaborate subterfuge, but instead of building a trophy or changing his name he writes a play. That’s right, Hamlet writes a play within a play, to try and read the reaction of Claudius, the man who killed his father. He gets actors to reenact the death of his father, and when it’s shown that he is poisoned Claudius’s reaction is a dead giveaway and Hamlet immediately knows the truth. He knows that Claudius poisoned his father to take over the thrown. Unlike Homer and Odysseus, Shakespeare and Hamlet don’t have such a heroic, happy ending; it is a tragic ending resulting in the death of almost every main character in the play but is finished with Hamlet getting closure on his father’s
In spite of everything, Hamlet ends up dying a hero due to his best friend Horatio, fulfilling his final dream, which was to tell the truth about his tragic story. The new king of Denmark, Fortinbras, states that Hamlet be remembered as a fallen soldier, “Bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage, for he was likely, had he been put on, to have proved most royal; and for his passage, the soldier’s music and the rite of war, speak loudly for him” [V.ii 441-446]. Through this closing quote of the play the audience is able to understand Fortinbras’ decision to have Hamlet remembered as a hero. One must remember throughout the novel that Hamlet’s ambiguous decisions were solely to redress the murder of his father who was slain out of jealousy and the acquisitive desire of his uncle
This quote reveals how all these things have affected Hamlet psychologically and emotionally. The death of King Hamlet has led the play toward more death themes, making this the most tragedy
Hamlet is William Shakespeare 's renowned tale of mystery, intrigue, and murder, centered on a young misguided prince who can only trust himself. Some may say that the actions of Prince Hamlet throughout the play are weak and fearful, displaying a tendency to procrastinate and showing an apathetic nature towards his family and peers. Others spin a tale of a noble young scholar, driven mad by the cold-blooded murder of his father by his uncle. In truth, I believe Hamlet is neither of these things. Hamlet is a sort of amalgamation of the two, a bundle of contradictions thrown together into one conflicting but very human mess of a character.
Unaware of the role Hamlet is playing, Ophelia feels rejected and hurt. Eventually, Ophelia’s heartache, along with the death of her father, causes her to commit suicide. Next, Claudius and Gertrude’s role play affect their relationship with Hamlet. At the beginning of the play, Claudius takes on the role of a kind, just king; he seems to genuinely care for Hamlet. He often gives him fatherly advice, and shows affection for Hamlet in ways that an uncle would.
Shakespeare presents death as an inevitable act of life, noting that all that is living must eventually come to an end. Due to “Hamlet” being a Shakespearean tragedy, the theme of death recurs throughout the play. Additionally, Shakespeare can be seen as using revenge as the main motive of a character’s murder, which makes “Hamlet” a revenge tragedy. The tragic nature means that by the end of the play, majority of the characters would have died. In this case, many of the characters have died due to murder or suicide.