Theme Of Comical Elements In Hamlet
Jae Im
Mrs. Baugh
AP Literature -- Period 1
7 November, 2017
Comical Elements in Hamlet
Hamlet, just like many of other Shakespearean novels, is a tragedy. Hamlet, the heroic character in this story, is faced with a terrible situation, and at the end, everyone including him ends up dying. This is a very common flow of a general tragedy. To both make the tragedy less tragic and to emphasize the tragic effects of it, Shakespeare tends to incorporate comical elements in his plays. In Hamlet, he introduces the Gravediggers in Act 5 Scene 1 of the play to achieve these two effects of comical elements The gravediggers scene allows Shakespeare to relieve the tragicness of the play. The scene takes place in one of the most mournful moments of the story: when burying Ophelia after her deaths. To prevent the play from becoming too mournful to watch, Shakespeare uses a light comedy to sneak in a humor; Gravediggers provide a comical relief to an otherwise bleak play. In this scene, Gravediggers debate whether to give Ophelia a Christian burial after suicide, and they at the same time make jokes and sing while digging. Their jokes can be seen when one asks “What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?” and the other replies “The gallows-maker, for that frame outlives a thousand tenants.” They poke fun of the dead in a riddle format. Their songs can be seen when one of the gravediggers goes “A pickax and a spade, a spade, for and a
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