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Foils Of Fortinbras In Hamlet

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“Quadruplets” in the Play Hamlet A foil is a character that presents a contrast to another character, especially the main character, in order to highlight the characteristics of the main character. It’s just like twins; even though they are alike, but they are still different in some aspects. In the famous play Hamlet, Shakespeare uses large amounts of foils to deepen the characterization of the protagonist called Hamlet such as Fortinbras, Laertes, and Horatio. First, it is very obvious that Fortinbras is a foil to Hamlet since they have similar experiences: both of them are the prince of the country; their fathers who have the same name as they do dies; their uncle who becomes the new king of the country doesn’t know what they are …show more content…

The major difference between Laertes and Hamlet is the time they spend on revenge. Hamlet doesn’t take every advantage of the large amount of opportunities to kill his uncle- he doesn’t kill Claudius when Claudius is praying in the room alone, for example; he keeps the right time to exact his vengeance. Also, he is suspicious whether the ghost is telling him the truth so that he prepares a play that is similar to the way Claudius kills his father to see Claudius’ reaction. After checking the ghost doesn’t lie, he is ready for revenge. On the other hand, Laertes just goes to Denmark as soon as he hears about the death of his father. Meanwhile, he receives support from many citizens while Hamlet just has about one or two loyal people who try to help him. The actions of Laertes reveal that he is calm because he doesn’t kill Claudius right away even though he hears many rumors before on the way to Denmark. Another similar point between these two people is that they both love Ophelia, but in different ways. Laertes loves Ophelia as a brother, so he gives many suggestions to Ophelia when he knows that Hamlet shows affection toward Ophelia; he keeps telling her that Hamlet is a young prince that his affection is not permanently, which alludes that he is really concerned about the future if Ophelia agrees to be with Hamlet. Hamlet loves Ophelia as a man since he writes a long letter showing his feelings toward Ophelia. In addition, he suffers a lot after he is rejected by Ophelia that “He was pale as his undershirt, and his knees were knocking together.” (Act 2, Scene

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