William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a literary masterpiece — a story of revenge, psychological distress, distorted truth, sexism and corruption — bound into a framework laced with cynicism and volatility. All intricately woven into a narrative through the characters Shakespeare develops. Hamlet, the central personality of the story and protagonist throughout, is characterized in a particularly maverick manner: through the other characters. This idea in literature is called the character foil: when the
to its own destruction.” The Shakespearean tragedy of Hamlet focuses heavily on the concepts of passion and reason, and is a prime demonstration of just how detrimental the effects of an internal conflict between these two entities can be for an individual. Shakespeare stresses the point that humans are polarized by reason and emotion. These two poles differ in all aspects, while both are gathered in man. Hamlet, the protagonist of Shakespeare’s greatest work, is a sample of this polarization. It is
William Shakespeare’s Hamlet intricately weaves in a dualistic the theme of cowardice and bravery in the spiralling plot revolving around the palpable effects of King Hamlet’s death. The young prince, distraught by the recent death of his beloved father as well as his mother’s hasty marriage to his uncle, oscillates between decisions “to be or not to be.”*to act or not to act- Throughout the majority of the play, Prince Hamlet fails to take action, hence remaining in a state of neither being or not