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Death In Hamlet Act 1

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Death has been an important theme since the beginning of the play. It is first mentioned with the murder of the late king. It is mentioned again in act 5. Act 5 scene 1 opens up in a graveyard where two gravediggers are burying the body of Ophelia. Through the conversation of the gravediggers, Shakespeare uses a reference about suicide to Christianity. One of the gravedigger is confused as to why they would give Ophelia a Christian Burial after she committed suicide which is a sin because people who commit suicide do not deserve a Christian Burial. Hamlet and Horatio then enters the scene. Hamlet is bothered that the gravedigger is singing while he’s working. He thinks that the he shouldn’t be too happy while burying dead bodies. After seeing Yorick’s skull, he thinks about life and death. Hamlet is upset because after everyone dies they become nothing, but a skull. He references Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar on …show more content…

Laertes complains to the priests to perform a full service for his sister. Suddenly Laertes jumps into Ophelia’s grave and exclaims that he wants to be buried next to her. Hamlet jumps in too and insults Laertes saying that he doesn’t love her as much as he does. They fight each other and are pulled apart. At the end of this scene, Claudius reminds Laertes about their plan to murder Hamlet.

In act 5 scene 2, Hamlet reveals to Horatio that after he found about Claudius's plan, he switched the letter Claudius sent urging the king of England to kill Hamlet with the one Hamlet wrote. Hamlet wrote down Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's names instead and to have them killed. Hamlet said that he doesn’t feel bad about arranging their death because they were disloyal toward Hamlet and were doing everything that Claudius told them to do. A courtier enters and tells Hamlet that Claudius has set a fence match for Hamlet and Laertes. Hamlet knows something is wrong, but then accepts the

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