Hamlet’s death is ultimately caused when he is stabbed with a poisoned sword; however, he finally attains his goal of killing King Claudius. By comparing the plotlines of Ophelia and Hamlet, the similarities become clearer. Both characters are young individuals that want to follow the wishes of their fathers. By doing this, they are indirectly led to their own death.
Hamlet immediately injures the King and forces the remaining poison down his throat in a moment of insanity, before collapsing and dying himself. Though Hamlet’s “antic disposition” began after learning about the death of his father to obscure his investigation and revenge against his uncle Claudius, Hamlet retained his sanity and was able to think and speak rationally when alone, or with Horatio or his mother. In Acts IV and V, however, Hamlet becomes more mentally and emotionally unstable, and descends into moments of pure insanity, where his rationale is overcome by his
In conclusion, Hamlet is indeed an insane psychopath, who started out playing an antic disposition which later just became worse and worse. The three reasons that prove Hamlet is insane, are first, the killing of Polonius in his mother's bed chambers. Second, is his famous speech about whether to be or not to be. The last thing that proves that Hamlet is not just pretending to be insane is in the final scene when himself and Laetes battle to the death, and when he drinks out of a poisoned gauntlet to speed up his
Prince Hamlet’s character in Act 3 scene 3, and 4 tells us much about him. Hamlet's character seemed distant and disconnected at the beginning of Act 3. There are so much deception and spying in this play one should be careful. As we read about Hamlet, we can witness that he is depressed dealing with the death of his father, the marriage of his mother to his uncle, makes Hamlet rethink the snake bite might be a lie.
Insanity is when someone isn’t able to determine right from wrong, cannot differentiate fantasy from reality, or has irrational thoughts and impulsive behavior. This doesn’t describe Hamlet, the main character from William Shakespeare’s play The Tragedy of Hamlet. Hamlet is overwhelmed with grief from his father’s death and his mother’s overhasty incestuous marriage with her deceased husband’s brother, Claudius. The ghost of King Hamlet appears from the shadows to reveal the truth – “The serpent that did sting thy father’s life now wears his crown” (I, 5, 27). To add on to his burdens, Hamlet has to get revenge on his uncle for murdering his father.
“The lovers want to live in union; the death-dealing feud opposes their desire” (Kahn 185) and the play suddenly turns into a tragedy. Thus, the feud plays a crucial role in the dramatic development of the play. Firstly, it is the feud which causes Tybald to kill Mercutio, as “To Tybald, a sword can only mean a challenge to fight, and peace is such a word” (Kahn 174). Furthermore, due to this conflict Romeo murders Tybald in order to take revenge for his friend’s death and in this way according to Paster he bothers the completion of his secret marriage with Juliet
Lady Macbeth commits suicide while Macbeth becomes paranoid and blames himself for his wife death. Another point of view of the play is the relationship between masculine and cruelty. Lady Macbeth manipulates her husband into doing things by questioning his manhood. She says to him, “Are you a man?” and also “When you durst do it, then you were a man”.
So how does King hamlet affect the theme of the play as a whole even while being so briefly present? It all comes off of when when he told hamlet what really happened. Hamlet was overwhelmed with madness and as a result it affected everyone else because he was acting out his madness by making them wonder why he was so mad for so long because over time they didn’t think he should still be that mad about his father's death. So when King Hamlet told his son Hamlet that he was killed by Hamlet's uncle Claudius, which is now sleeping with his mother, drove Hamlet to instantly seek vengeance for his father throughout the entire play. Which set the theme for the play being, vengeance.
Because Hamlet can see reality so clearly, the growing obsession forces Hamlet to act irrationally when he is confronting other individuals. For example, when talking to Gertrude in the castle bedroom, Hamlet can no longer control his actions, which spur from his emotions, while he refers to Gertrude’s association with Claudius as a matter of “kill[ing] a king” and while he slays Polonius, who is hiding behind a curtain (Scene 4, pg 86-87). Hamlet’s obsession with murdering his father’s killer coincides with the confirmed revelation of Claudius’ actions and Polonius’ death by demonstrating that the prince can no longer remain objective in his goal, which ironically, was his father’s advice. Despite Polonius consistently acting as the “rat” (pg. 87) that Hamlet refers to, and has been aware of, the prince cannot help but allow his irrationality to grip him tightly. As a result, Hamlet can only think in black and white, rather than consider future possibilities.
Finally, this provokes Hamlet enough to kill him with his own drink before he dies off. His deception has failed in these events because of his need to create tricks as a cover-up. To think if he had simply stuck to just the poisoned weapon he could have succeeded. Ultimately, the use of Claudius is to reveal how language can be used to manipulate and deceive others to not knowing the truth. He shows us that situations can be perceived another way based on the use of
In Shakespeare, Hamlet, revenge plays a large role in some of the characters actions. Hamlet was trying to get revenge on Claudius almost the whole play. Laertes wants to get revenge on Hamlet because Hamlet killed his father. Young Fortinbras wants to get revenge for King Hamlet killing his father. Although all of these characters were trying to get revenge, they all had different outcomes.