Arrogance is a nine-letter word that instills terrible traits in a person's personality. William Shakespeare's famed play "Hamlet" depicts the character of Hamlet as a complex individual with a key flaw: arrogance. By delving into the concept of "hamartia" as a tragic flaw, discussing the defining characteristics of a tragic hero, and examining a specific incident showcasing Hamlet's arrogance, we can gain profound insights into the impact of this flawed character on the tragic trajectory of the play.
Firstly, The Greek term hamartia, which means "tragic flaw," refers to a character's inbuilt feature or characteristic that leads to their ultimate downfall. In Hamlet's situation, arrogance turns into hamartia, blinding him to the harmful effects of his acts and clouding his judgment.
…show more content…
Mother, you have my father much offended.
Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.
Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue. (3.4.10-13)
He criticizes her actions and condemns her hasty marriage to Claudius, his uncle. Hamlet believes that he has the authority to pass judgment and condemnation upon those around him, including his mother. Hamlet's pride obscures the situation's complexity, which stops him from comprehending the ramifications of his words and actions. He criticizes Gertrude for alleged moral breaches, claiming superiority and righteousness. This arrogance strains their relationship and worsens the problems within the play, causing a terrible chain of events to unfold.
Hamlet's arrogance is a fatal characteristic contributing to his demise. Hamlet's arrogance blinds him to the consequences of his acts and motivates his destructive behaviour, such as his treatment of Polonius and Ophelia. Like a tragic hero, he has good characteristics but succumbs to the fatal defect of arrogance. Shakespeare's depiction of Hamlet's arrogance is a critical lesson, reminding people of the risks unchecked pride and the devastation can
By verbally harassing Ophelia and estranging himself from her, Hamlet provides the apparent image of losing his prior care without a great amount of consideration. Additionally, Hamlet further displays his anger for his father’s death through this display. By dissolving his relationship with Ophelia, Hamlet furthers his image of insanity to further illustrate himself as incapable within Claudius’s eyes while still communicating distaste for his loss of his father. With Hamlet’s intentionally swift change of heart for Ophelia, Hamlet’s procedure warrants a certain level of sanity. Regardless of the sudden nature, Hamlet’s continual barring from Ophelia possesses procedure which causes further doubt of Hamlet’s mental instability from the audience of the
He would rather avenge the death of his father and push everyone away, than lean on those who care for him. This quote foreshadows his death, and in the end, it is his fault. Hamlet’s sense of pride is again closely related the the ideas in the “Humility Code”. The fifth code states that, “pride blinds us to our own weaknesses and misleads us into thinking we are better than we are” (Brooks 109). Hamlet believes that he will be able to kill Claudius and get his revenge.
He is vulnerable to fits of rage, demonstrated by his murder of Polonius and his ridicule of his mother by calling her a “wretched, rash, intruding fool” (3.4 38). This emotional instability leads to poor judgment and rash decisions that could put Denmark in grave danger. An example of rash decisions in Hamlet is Claudius’ emotionally fogged decision to respond “It likes us well” (2.2.72) to Fortinbras’ plan to storm through Denmark to get a tiny piece of Poland, which ultimately allowed Fortinbras to take the throne. Moreover, Hamlet spends an unusual amount of time self-loathing “O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!” (2.2.577) and raging: “Contagion to this world.
Although the audience can relate to the general scenarios Hamlet undergoes, most of his experiences are quite incomprehensible to the average person. Thus, proposing these questions naturally leads the audience to put themselves in Hamlet’s shoes, evaluating the “whips and scorns” he has endured, which in turn generates empathy. Interestingly enough, empathy and projection are opposite ideas (Abeles); as Hamlet attempts to redirect the focus off of himself, the audience does the exact opposite by evaluating Hamlet’s life from his cynical yet unique perspective. At the same time, the audience can still identify with Hamlet’s pain stemming from the loss of his father and disconnect with his lover, among other
Hamlet Character deception is a common characteristic that has and will be a reflecting characteristic in literature for centuries. In many of William Shakespeare’s tragedies, deception, whether positive or negative, is being used to mislead, to protect characters, or to hide a crime or future crime. Analyzing why the characters are using deception against each other is very important to the reader’s understanding of the work as a whole. In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, He uses Hamlet’s deception of character and also the character’s use of deception towards Hamlet to carry out the overall theme of the tragedy. The theme that is represented, is that in able to get malicious revenge, you must be able to act as if you are someone different than your true self while in turn, being able to deal with others deceiving you.
Hamlet Journal 1 In William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, the main character Hamlet, appears to be insane, but his mistrust for his uncle and desire for revenge drives him “To put on an antic disposition on— / That you, at such times seeing me, never shall,” (I.v.181). He succeeds in convincing almost everyone around him that he is truly a mad man whose only cure is execution; however, he is enigmatic and ambiguous. By having an appearance of insanity and madness, Hamlet is able to use it to his advantage to achieve his own purpose of ridding his father’s murderer.
Deception is an action driven with the motive to employ one purpose which can be to mislead another individual in order to gain knowledge, to get revenge, or to reveal a plan unknown to the public eye and keeping it that way for the dutiful well-being of the Kingdom of Denmark. In the tragedy Hamlet by William Shakespeare, deception develops into the character trait that initiates the actions, heartbreak, and revenge driving this play. This attribute held by Hamlet is the leading cause of this same flaw development in Ophelia, King Claudius, and many others in an attempt to reinforce the theme. This theme is one of heroism, but the deceptive notion each action reveals challenges the perception the reader has on each of the main characters. In order to be able to fully analyze the part Hamlet’s deception plays in driving the plot and storyline of this tragedy, one must understand that a foil character juxtaposes each character to illuminate their shortcomings.
The personality of such characters as Hamlet from William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet is much remarked upon. However, it is even more meaningful to analyze changes in Hamlet’s character throughout the play. As Hamlet becomes more driven in his revenge, his actions lose morality and gain consequences. In fact, Shakespeare uses the relationship between a character’s cruelty and the meaning in the pain they cause to comment on the cyclically destructive nature of cruelty.
When betrayed, one usually has negative emotions towards the people who have betrayed them. In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare this idea is well illustrated, it is shown that betrayal affects the actions of Hamlet towards his friends and family, which indicates that the pursuit of vengeance often can cause one to forget the value of life. The betrayals that Hamlet suffered at the hands of his close friends and family, revealed important parts of Hamlet’s character, such as his intelligence, he is a very meticulous thinker that looks at situations from all angles, he is cunning, he has the ability to manipulate everyone into believing that he is insane, and he is skeptical, he does not believe any information until he finds it out for
However, in the eyes of a modern audience, Hamlet would not be considered a coward because of our deeper, more enlightened understanding of the underpinning reasons for his hesitation through our values and beliefs. Hamlet perceives himself as a coward for many reasons however after in-depth analysis, it is concluded that his self-accusation is incorrect. Hamlet considers himself a coward due to his hamartia; his constant scrutiny and contemplation of the idea of killing Claudius, his uncle causing him not to take action. In Act 2 Scene 2, Shakespeare uses a soliloquy to let the audience have an insight into what Hamlet is thinking, to create sympathy for him and to bring about the development of Anagnorisis within the play. After watching a player acting the role of Hecuba crying on stage while performing the story of Pyrrhus, he wonders at the player’s ability to weep for a fictional character and asks himself, ‘Am I coward?’
It is that persona that makes it such a challenge to understand him, but in fact, it can be that the reason that his feelings are widely unknown are not because he is completely inexpressible as he is portrayed, but can be the outcome of a plot that besmirched his character. Shakespeare’s fault was generating a story that unsettled Hamlet’s emotions, and so his madness is perceived as “a deliberate dissimulation” – a trick to gain revenge on his
Second, one’s self-consciousness decides whether or not the character is considered “theatrical”. Hamlet’s continuous deliberation for theatricality is part of his tragedy. He thinks of himself as a character of a play and always feels compelled to do something because of the influence the ghost of his father holds upon him. Conclusively, Hamlet’s self-consciousness implies that internal freedom can be attained when the he can separate his intelligence for intensifying his mindfulness from his own precarious passion for pure
The leading force for Hamlet’s behavior to change is his mother marrying her dead husband’s brother two months later. In the play Hamlet states “O God, a beast that wants discourse of reason/ Would have mourned longer-married with my uncle,/ My father’s brother, but no more like my father” ( I.ii.150-152). This explains that Hamlet is frustrated because his mother moved on so fast and it seemed to him that she never really loved King Hamlet. Hamlet also claims that “Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,/That can denote me truly” ( I.ii.82-83 ). Hamlet is trying to tell his mother Queen Gertrude how he feels after the
Through the entirety of the play “Hamlet” by William Shakespeare, the characters were overcome with the need for revenge as the outcome of many deaths. Therefore, no one was happy through “Hamlet” and it resulted in a tragedy. The character Hamlet played a big role in turning towards revenge and never would classify himself as being happy. Hamlet displays positive and negative behavior throughout the play. Hamlet exhibits strengths and weaknesses as well, although his weaknesses of over-thinking, bitterness, and his inability to accept the death of his father overshadow his strengths.
Due to himself being too idealistic and restrained, he does not take decisive actions even after using the planned play to test the Claudius's conscience that could possibly expose himself and left himself in unfavorable circumstances. Hamlet’s inability to act is caused by his overanalysis of the situations that further render him from not carrying out actions in response. If Hamlet is not indecisive, he would not be uncertain about the evidence regarding to his uncle’s crime, he would not be delaying his revenge, he would not be having emotional breakdowns and become a tragic figure. Hamlet’s personality ‘borns’ and develops under his royal position and the growing