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Compare and contrast Hamlet, Fortinbras, and Laertes in act 4.this question is from the play Hamlet, Act 4...help!!!

Accepted Answer

These three characters make up a three-person character foil.  A foil is a character set up in contrast to another one who has similar characteristics.  All three of these young men, in Act IV, are approximately the same age, have all lost a father, and all have a legitimate claim for revenge.
However, all three differ in how they approach this revenge duty.  Hamlet, as we have seen all throughout the play, has taken a type of avoidance tactic.  He is circumventing his duty, refusing to act directly.  Conversely, Laertes is direct to a fault; he instantly attacks the king, blaming him for his father's death.  He doesn't stop to think logically at all.  In this way, he is the direct opposite of Hamlet.  Finally, Fortinbras seeks his revenge in a calculated, logically planned manner.  He devises a plan to sweep across Denmark and take control by surprise; he is driven to a degree that literally lacks emotion.
These three men all take the same set of circumstances and create their own, very different, outcomes.

Answer

In act 4, scene 4, Fortinbras is leading soldiers across Denmark to reclaim a small patch of land that was lost by Norway. Despite the fact that the land "hath in it no profit but the name," according to a captain, Fortinbras is willing to go to a great deal of trouble, which will cost many of his men their lives, in order to reacquire the land that was lost. It's a matter of pride and honor for him, and Hamlet cannot help comparing his own inactive response to his father's murder to Fortinbras's decisive action regarding a mere parcel of land that is essentially worthless. He says,

Witness this army of such mass and chargeLed by a delicate and tender prince,Whose spirit with divine ambition puffedMakes mouths at the invisible event,Exposing what is mortal and unsureTo all that fortune, death and danger dare,Even for an eggshell. Rightly to be greatIs not to stir without great argument,But greatly to find quarrel in a strawWhen honor's at the stake. How stand I then,That have a father killed, a mother stained,Excitements of my reason and my blood,And let all sleep -- while, to my shame, I seeThe imminent death of twenty thousand men,That for a fantasy and trick of fameGo to their graves like beds, fight for a plotWhereon the numbers cannot try the cause,Which is not tomb enough and continent To hide the slain? (4.4.46-64)

In other words, he talks about this huge army led by this prince who is so ambitious that he risks his life for such a small reason. To be great doesn't mean that one fights only when one has a real reason but also when the reason is much smaller and one's honor is at stake. Now, here is Hamlet, with a murdered father and defiled mother, still not taking action. To his shame, he sees that this massive army of men will die for a plot of land too small even to bury them all. He recognizes, then, that he has behaved in a cowardly manner, without honor, dishonoring his family, especially compared to Fortinbras's behavior.
In the meantime, Laertes has learned of the strange death and hushed-up and hasty burial of his father, Polonius, and he's come back to Denmark to raise a riot and avenge his father. When Laertes confronts Claudius, he says,

That drop of blood that's calm proclaims me bastard,Cries "Cuckold!" to my father, brands the "harlot"Even here between the chaste unsmirched browOf my true mother. (4.5.117-120)

He essentially claims that any calm drop of blood in him would prove that he's not really his father's son, that his mother was an adulteress who slept with another man and bore his child, Laertes. In other words, any true and honorable son would come back angry and vengeful if his father had been treated thus. Laertes is eager for his opportunity to confront Hamlet for killing his father and driving his sister mad. His prompt and decisive response to his father's murder also makes Hamlet's lack of action after his own father's murder seem that much more cowardly and weak.

Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Compare and contrast Hamlet, Fortinbras, and Laertes in act 4. this question is from the play Hamlet, Act 4...help!!!

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