We all know the Shakespearian play Hamlet and its many remember able cast. By either reading it in high school or maybe watching one of the many film adaptations. Though what do we really know about the characters? Is Gertrude really innocent in the death of her husband, or was Ophelia’s death even suicide at all, and most importantly maybe Hamlet really has become mad. Yes, even the charming prince of Demark cannot escape the clutches of insanity. Maybe the story of Hamlet as we knew was not the whole picture. Maybe it was just and obscure version of it. Maybe the story of revenge we were taught to believe was really just a cover up to one big cold blooded murdering spree.
Let us go over some background information on the play. Hamlet a prince
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This is also the scene were we get to look at Hamlet’s first sign of insanity hallucinations. In the scene enters Horatio with two guard men. Horatio on the behalf of the two men claim that they saw the ghost of Hamlet’s late father. Now one could argue that ghost actually exists, because other members of the play can see it. Though the “ghost” could be a poor attempt at trying to cheer up the prince thought up by the guards and Horatio. So the next night Hamlet stands watch with the guards and Horatio hoping to get a glance at the ghost. Just like the nights before the “ghost” appears before the men. It doesn’t speak, but beckons for Hamlet to follow. Only after defying his friends Hamlet chases after the ghost and it is then that the ghost speaks to him. Curiously though the ghost has never spoken to any other member in the play except Hamlet, and after the first night no one can see the ghost only hamlet himself. Not even his dear mother Gertrude who was once married to it. Not only that but it is after seeing the ghost is Hamlet put on his war path. Possibly the “ghost” is just a personified version of Hamlets feelings of hate, anger, and jealousy towards his uncle. It is the ghost who tells Hamlet that his uncle is to blame for his father’s death and to go seek revenge upon
After the ghost apparition, he's forced to go outside of his pragmatic views only to discover himself in seclusion and derangement. Without Horatio, who has never seen the ghost, Hamlet finds himself constantly contemplating how he should proceed. As an intellect, Hamlet naturally responds with rational deductions. He declares out loud to himself “O, what a rogue and peasant slave am! It is not monstrous that this player here, but in a fiction, and a passion, the forces so so to his own conceit.”
Later on, it is the ghost who reveals to Hamlet the murderous circumstances of his father’s death and Claudius involvement in them, turning the play in a quest for revenge. But Hamlet is not a traditional revenge play since through the whole plot the protagonist struggles with various uncertainties, including the doubt if the apparition is really his father and if it speaks the truth. Thus, making Hamlet not only a narrative in which a ghost appears but in which a ghost acts and affects the plot immensely. Thus, it can be argued that the ghost is essentially the driving force of the play by affecting the other
The ghost shares with Hamlet that it is indeed the ghost of his father
Ernest Hemingway once said, “The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.” Trusting one’s own mind to make sure critical information does not get out may be fairly more easy than to trust another person with it. In Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” the protagonist faces a hardship of his own on whether or not to trust himself along with those surrounding him. Since Hamlet admits that he merely acts insane, he has the ability to decide who he should and should not trust with his secret. No matter how hard he tried, Hamlet faced times where he needed and wanted to out his ‘crazed mind’.
Horatio is scared and notices that the ghost did look the late King Hamlet dressed in armor. Horatio believes that the ghost is trying to bring a warning of a misfortune. The ghost comes and Horatio tries to talk to it. The ghost does not reply and disappears at the crow cocks at the sight of dawn. Horatio says that they should inform Prince Hamlet about this incidence, he thinks that the ghost may speak to his son.
When Hamlet got to see the ghost, Horatio, one of the people who saw it that one night, said, “Look, my lord, it comes” (Shakespeare, I, iv, 38). Hamlet undoubtedly wanted to see what the ghost looked like since they told him, since it was his dad, so Horatio and Marcellus took him to the spot where they saw him and waited until the ghost came. This is another example about how Hamlet is not the only one seeing the ghost. Why are other people seeing the ghost, when his mother could not see the ghost. If people are telling him hear comes the ghost, is he trying to pretend to his mother that the ghost is in the room to make her feel mad about what she and his uncle have done?
The Ghost, who was supposedly King Hamlet had a desire for revenge against Claudius, and due to this he heavily influenced the occurrence of the tragedy. “Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder” (1.5.25). By speaking these words to Hamlet the Ghost started Hamlet’s road to vengeance, and in turn heavily influenced the occurrence of the tragedy. The Ghost was the trigger for Hamlet to act. Throughout the play Hamlet, and his actions directly caused multiple tragedies, some of which did not even impact Claudius, the one the Ghost desired vengeance on.
Furthermore, the ghost’s cause of presenting uncertainty plants the seed of madness throughout the play. Not knowing, or being in a state of grey, can lead to a wandering mind, of which many of Hamlet’s characters portray. Whether the ghost is real, whether the ghost is that of the
The man decided to revenge, and his actions led to death of almost all main characters including his own. Hamlet was performed and cinematized many times. The play contains eternal topics like betrayal, revenge or difficult relations between close relatives. It can be turned into a more modern thriller or detective, but the plot would need some modernizations for this transformation. While these
First, King Hamlet’s ghost affects action when he first appears in the play. When he first appears, he doesn’t even speak. When he finally does speak, he only talks to his son, Prince Hamlet. The ghost says, “I am thy father’s spirit… Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder” (1.5.9,25 Hamlet).
King Hamlet’s ghost in Hamlet plays a very significant role in Shakespeare’s play even though he only appears briefly in the very beginning and two other times throughout the play. King Hamlet’s ghost furthers the play in many ways. He affects action by setting the play in motion, he affects the theme of revenge, and he helps develop other characters, specifically his son, Hamlet. He sets the play in motion by causing the wheels to spin inside of Prince Hamlet’s head, the ghost is the whole reason for Hamlet trying to extract revenge upon his murderous Uncle Claudius who is now the King of Denmark. The ghost affects the theme of revenge by causing Young Hamlet to be seized by vengeance, the whole play turns into a story of Prince Hamlet trying to avenge his father’s wrongful death.
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.
It has been argued by many literary critics that the ghost is a figment of Hamlet`s imagination, despite Barnardo, Mercutio and Horatio witnessing it before the prince, potentially indicating that it is real because three level headed characters view it first. However, the characters are hesitant about the ghost with Marcellus insisting that they “question it “whilst Barnardo seems to believe “its` not something more than fantasy” which creates uncertainty about the figure`s identity. Many events over the course of the play indicate Hamlet`s fragile state of mind and how the ghost is only present in his thoughts. For example, the prince`s obsession with his mother`s infidelity could be a reason for the ghost instructing him to murder Claudius.
At the very beginning of the play when he encounters the ghost of his father, Hamlet is told the real circumstances of his father’s death. Claudius, his uncle, had murdered hamlet’s father in his sleep and swooped in to steal his brother’s throne, and also Hamlet’s mother. Hamlet is immediately confused and angered by what his father’s ghost had told him. Not only
Or it can be seen as the ghost being some type of evil spirit trying to destroy hamlet through bad advice. The ghost is simply trying to free its spirit from purgatory and not trying to destroy hamlet, this is evident due to the fact that we know that Claudius killed Hamlet’s father in cold blood before he could pray for his sins. The ghosts role in the play is to tell Hamlet how he truly died. The nature in which the ghost appears in the play changes from appearance to appearance.