Hamlet is holding the skull of Yorick, a jester who once provided laughter and entertainment, and musing on the fact that all of his earthly pleasures and accomplishments have now been reduced to a mere pile of bones. This moment serves as a reminder that death is the great equalizer, and that all material wealth, status, and earthly pleasures are ultimately meaningless in the face of mortality. The quote serves to criticize the superficial values and priorities of human life and to highlight the importance of focusing on what truly matters in life. This quote is a powerful critique of the vanities and follies of human life, reminding us that all material wealth and earthly pleasures are ultimately meaningless in the face of death and that we should strive to focus on what truly matters in
Hamlet's Despair in Act 1, Scene 5 After the conversation between Hamlet and the ghostly figure of his father, the king, in Act 1, Scene 2, Hamlet falls into a manic state of despair, attempting to grasp everything his father had told him from beyond the grave. Hamlet states, "Ay, thou poor ghost, whiles memory holds a seat / In this distracted globe" (1.5.96-97). In this metaphorical sentence, the "memory" of hamlets father is replaced by a "poor ghost" Hamlet is unable to see his father as the strong ruler he once was, now his father's memory has been replaced by the knowledge of Claudius the former king's brother murdering him to obtain both his kingdom and Gertrude, Hamlet's mother. Hamlet's father is now forced to "hold a seat in this distracted
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
In the play Hamlet, we find that Hamlet meets with his father’s ghost, and about his father murder by the hands of blood related brother, Hamlet takes a decision, to revenge and restore the glory back
The remembrance of the dead allows for friction between Hamlet, Claudius and Gertrude to be created due to their different methods of viewing death. This also explains the willingness with which Hamlet accepts the vengeful act his father bestows on him, as he continued to mourn his father’s death while his family had accepted it. The importance of rememering the dead allowed for the action of the play to exist, as it is this remembrance which created Hamlet’s plot of revenge. Finally, the importance of the remembrance of the dead in Hamlet is that it conjures actions laden in revenge, which leads to the violent end to the
but it brought out Hamlet’s intelligence and solidified his sanity. The dark background of the set forced the audience to focus on the little details of Gibson’s expressions and then the bodies that appeared with their eyes closed using sleep to symbolize death. All of the coffins represent the many different ways that Hamlet could kill Claudius but they are also an allusion to Hamlet’s struggle with life. Gibson’s tone is sad, depressed, and yet soft throughout his soliloquy. There was no music which allowed the audience to rely on his words and expressions to portray the emotion of the
He maintains that his life has no value throughout the play and contemplates suicide. Hamlet's questioning thoughts on life's worth is further expressed the ten lines of 203-212 in act V scene i. which read ““No, faith, not a jot, but to follow him thither/ with modesty enough and likelihood to lead it:/ Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander retur-/ neth to dust, the dust is earth, of earth we make/ loam, and why of that loam whereto he was con-/ verted might they not stop a beer-barrel?/ Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay,/ Might stop a hole to keep the wind away./ O that the earth which kept the world in awe/ Should patch a wall t' expel the winter's flaw!” Hamlet speaks these lines during an exchange with the gravediggers, one who was singing and juggling skulls while he worked. In these lines, Hamlet explains how no one's life is really worth anything because, in the end, we are all reduced to corpses, skulls, dust, and clay. By using Alexander and Caesar as examples, two influential and powerful leaders of
thought of ending his life and escaping from all these depression and emotional torture. “What is the good of living when shame torments our conscience and cowardice holds us back from gallant enterprises?”(Act 3, scene 1). Here, Hamlet is being confronted with a situation that is too much for him to handle. Hamlet wonders, what is the gain in avenging his father’s death, if it can not change anything or make him happy? It will not bring his father back to life, he will not possess his mother, he might not be crown king and he might be jailed, even when he had every opportunity to kill his uncle while he was praying, instead of claiming that he does not want him to go to heaven.
“Oh I die, Horatio,” breathes young Hamlet, the Danish prince and philosopher, spluttering his final words to his best friend before he closes his eyes for eternity. A few steps away near the throne lies Claudius, brutally stabbed and very much still; the King is dead, and the revenge of the Ghost of late Hamlet is fulfilled. However, these two bodies are not the only ones that are inanimate. Splayed across the court are the helpless limbs and lolling heads of Laertes and Gertrude, whose departures were not meant to be. Neither did Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and Polonius nor did the lovely, blossoming Ophelia need to face perennial sleep; the lives of seven, including Hamlet himself, deserves to prevail but, of course, does not.
In the beginning of the play Hamlet, the main character, is struggling with events that have taken place in his life. His Father has recently died and his Uncle has now married his Mother. With sorrow and pain, Hamlet tries to understand and unravel the aberrant events that have taken place with his family. The events have amended the way Hamlet views death. After his Father’s death, Hamlet questions the afterlife; whether it offers a “peaceful slumber” or an “everlasting nightmare”.
According to International Suicide Statistic, over one million people die by suicide worldwide each year. The global suicide rate is 16 per 100,000 population. On average, one person dies by suicide every 40 seconds somewhere in the world. Global suicide rates have increased 60% in the past 45 years. It seems that the characters found that the simplest and best way of avoiding life struggles is through suicide.
When Hamlet meets with the ghost King Hamlet in the opening scene, he realizes that his father is murdered by Claudius. From Act I scene 5, the ghost King Hamlet is asking Hamlet to seek for revenge, “So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear” (1.5.12). By knowing this, Hamlet starts the revenge for his father and sets the tone of the entire play where death, revenge, murder, and suicide become the symbols of the whole play, and leads to the deaths of almost all the characters, including Claudius, Laertes, Polonius, Ophelia, Queen Gertrude, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and Hamlet himself. Also, because of his father’s death and his mother’s quick marriage with Claudius, Hamlet has the idea of committing suicide. From Act I scene 2, "O, that this too sullied flesh would melt,Thaw, and resolve itself to dew" (1.2.133-134).
Death, and what comes after it, has fascinated human for as long as we have been able to conceptualize it. Fear and curiosity drove a ceaseless search for the ultimate unknown: the afterlife. Tied to this obsession with mortality is the concept of causing death, either someone else’s or your own. William Shakespeare focuses on the ideas and taboo nature that surround death, specifically suicide, in his play Hamlet. Through Hamlet’s soliloquies, the events surrounding Ophelia’s demise, and the truly tragic ending of the play, Shakespeare shows the conflict between the preoccupation with death and the possible relief it could provide and the religious, moral, and other possible drawbacks that concern the act of ending a life.
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.
In the play Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, Hamlet is tangled with the theme of death. During the play, he presents how his life is surrounded with death after the death of his father. Death theme is the most occuring theme Shakespeare writes about in his plays, which most plays have a very dramatic death theme and most of time involve the death of the main protagonist. Throughout the play, Shakespeare presents the idea of life, which is the never ending cycle of death and revenge. Shakespeare starts the theme of death with the death of King Hamlet, which stimulates Hamlet to seek for revenge with his various soliloquies considering death from various points of view and certainly leads to a dramatic ending.