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Hamlet
Both "Mad World" and Hamlet's first soliloquy are alike thematically in depicting an ordinary world that seems to have gone crazy. As he expresses in his soliloquy, Hamlet has come home to the...
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Hamlet
In act 1, scene 5, Hamlet interacts with his father's ghost, who informs him that Claudius is responsible for his death and carried out the murder while he was sleeping in the orchard. The Ghost...
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Hamlet
If you're approaching Shakespeare's exploration of the loss of identity solely with regard to the character of Hamlet, the questions to ask are: Does Hamlet experience a loss of identity in...
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Hamlet
Claudius ignores Ophelia for much of her existence except when he needs to use her in a plan to discover the cause of Hamlet's supposed lunacy. Claudius and Polonius use her as a pawn to decide if...
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Hamlet
Taking into account that the mise-en-scene in Hamlet is the royal court, the actions and reactions are quite “human” – that is, the everyday weaknesses (avarice, violence for power, lust, etc.) of...
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Hamlet
The five most important characters in Hamlet are Prince Hamlet, the Ghost of King Hamlet, Queen Gertrude, King Claudius and Laertes. Of these, Laertes is the most arguable, and many readers would...
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Hamlet
Political power is shown throughout Hamlet as something that can easily be abused. Since Claudius took over the throne after murdering his brother, Denmark has been plunged into a morally rotten...
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Hamlet
Hamlet and Horatio are both young men, and attend the same school, Wittenberg, in Germany. They are both very loyal characters. Hamlet is loyal to the love and memory of his father, and is doing...
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Hamlet
Hamlet undergoes an identity crisis throughout much of the play. He comes home to a Danish court that seems so strangely altered that he hardly knows who he is or even if he wants to stay alive....
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Hamlet
The longest of Shakespeare's plays, Hamlet is a tragedy of life, an existential drama, indeed, with Hamlet transcending the action of the plot. The main plot revolves around Hamlet's soliloquies,...
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Hamlet
The single most important character in Shakespeare's Hamlet is the eponymous protagonist, Hamlet himself. He has the most lines of any character in the play and the plot revolves around his actions...
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Hamlet
The relationship between Claudius and Gertrude is destructive in two ways. First, they destroy the potential in their own relationship; second, they destroy other people literally. A quick marriage...
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Hamlet
Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) is an essayist who writes on themes consistent with his pessimistic view of life. In his vision, the will of a human being is an underlying force that...
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Hamlet
The basic argument in this soliloquy goes something like this: I should kill myself because I really hate life. Everything in life is hard, so why should I deal with it? But on the other hand, I...
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Hamlet
We don't see much of the relationship between Gertrude and Ophelia, but in what glimpses Shakespeare provides, Gertrude expresses approval towards Ophelia and an affection that is almost maternal....
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Hamlet
In general, in the Elizabethan and Jacobean theater, prose has a variety of purposes by which certain passages are set off from the rest of the action. It is difficult to identify a single or...
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Hamlet
Shakespeare uses both dialogue and soliloquy to express Hamlet's anguish at his mother's quick remarriage to a man Hamlet considers unworthy of her. When she gently chides him in court for moping...
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Hamlet
Though multiple symbols can be associated with each character, I'll provide a sample for each. Hamlet keeps the skull of Yorick, a dead court jester. On one occasion, Hamlet speaks to the skull as...
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Hamlet
When Hamlet apologizes, saying that it was his madness which caused him to insult Laertes and nothing more, Laertes replies that his feelings are satisfied, but what has happened to his father and...
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Hamlet
The first significant plot point takes place in act 1, scene 5, when Hamlet interacts with his father's ghost, who informs him of Claudius's treachery. The ghost instructs Hamlet to avenge his...
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Hamlet
In both Shakespeare's play Hamlet and August Wilson's play The Piano Lesson, the ghosts in the stories serve to develop the theme of being released from the past.In Hamlet, the ghost of Hamlet's...
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Hamlet
Tension and suspense are created from the very beginning of the play. The first act and scene features a midnight watch in the bitter cold. They are joined by Horatio, a close friend of the title...
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Hamlet
In Shakespeare's Hamlet, the play abounds with images of death from the very beginning. At the start, Hamlet is struggling with his father's death; he greatly resents his mother's hasty remarriage...
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Hamlet
Hamlet is arguably the most complex male character in the English canon. His soliloquies are complicated and filled with contradictions. He is as motivated as he is contemplative. It is hard to...
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Hamlet
Hamlet’s clever use of words, especially his use of pun, his dialogue and dark and sarcastic repartees with the duplicitous and ridiculous character Polonius, along with the action and dialogues in...
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Hamlet
A tragedy, Aristotle wrote, is the imitation in dramatic form of an action that is serious and complete, with incidents arousing pity and fear; this drama, then, effects a catharsis of such...
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Hamlet
What Hamlet wants his mother to do is to stop being married to Claudius. He thinks it is disgusting that she has married her dead husband's brother. He also thinks that she was already sleeping...
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Hamlet
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have been brought to Denmark by Claudius in order to spy on Hamlet. As always, Claudius wants to get to the bottom of Hamlet's supposed madness. He figures that if...
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Hamlet
In act one, the audience is indirectly introduced to young Fortinbras, the nephew of the current king of Norway and the son of the former, now deceased, king of Norway. Young Fortinbras's father...
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Hamlet
In the opening scene of the play, Horatio, Marcellus, and Bernardo witness a ghost roam the outer walls of Elsinore Castle near midnight while they are standing guard. All three men are astonished...
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Hamlet
In Shakespeare's Hamlet, the first mention of madness is made by Horatio, who warns Hamlet about going off alone with the ghost of Hamlet's father. HORATIO. What if it tempt you toward the flood,...
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Hamlet
When Hamlet speaks with his mother, Gertrude, her concern for him grows exponentially after he begins to interact with the ghost of his father while she is in the room. After all, she cannot see...
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Hamlet
Hamlet is considered one of Shakespeare's greatest works and is also his longest play, comprised as it is of more than four thousand lines. Composing a brief five-sentence summary is a very...
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Hamlet
Through almost the entire play, Hamlet is tied up in his own head. He struggles with the decision to continue living, given the suspected murder of his father and the flight to "incestuous sheets"...
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Hamlet
King Claudius of Hamlet verges upon being a stock villain: He is unconscionable, unethical, immoral, hypocritical, without remorse for many of his acts, Machiavellian in his rule. From the...
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Hamlet
At first glance, Holden's situation could be judged so "trivial" in comparison with that of Hamlet that we would have few points of comparison. In Hamlet betrayal takes the form of murder, coverup,...
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Hamlet
You may want to move this over to the Literature question and answer section, where you are likely to get more detailed responses. In the meantime, I would urge you to take a look at how this...
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Hamlet
Hamlet becomes very secretive when he sees his father's ghost. In Act 1, Scene 4, Hamlet and the night guardsmen see the ghost of King Hamlet. Horatio and Marcellus have seen the the ghost before....
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Hamlet
King Fortinbras was killed when his son, Young Fortinbras was a boy. King Fortinbras' uncle, named Old Norway in the play, took over as King. Young Fortinbras never really knew his father but...
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Hamlet
In his soliloquy, Claudius claims to be remorseful for what he has done. But he believes that he cannot really be forgiven for what he acknowledges is a "rank" crime. The reason for this is that he...
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Hamlet
Hamlet's life is miserable no matter what he does. Many people give him advice in the play, but none of it works. That's the whole point of Hamlet: suffering and death are inevitable. Hamlet is...
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Hamlet
I think that the play and the characterizations offered are highly relevant today. Hamlet, himself, endures much of what adolescents today endure. His divided consciousness, lack of solidity in...
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Hamlet
It is certainly true that the two female characters in Hamlet have plenty of overbearing men in their lives, telling them what to do and criticizing what they have done. This is particularly true...
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Hamlet
Hamlet is in conflict with Claudius because Hamlet's mother married Claudius, Hamlet's uncle, just one month after Hamlet's father had died. In addition, the Ghost of Hamlet's father reveals to...
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Hamlet
The problems of life to which Hamlet refers in his "To be, or not to be" soliloquy in act 3, scene 1 of Shakespeare's Hamlet and the questions he raises are universal in the sense that, in one way...
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Hamlet
At the beginning of the play, hamlet is very discouraged with life because his mother remarried so soon after his father's death. He is very melancholy and no one quite knows the reason for his...
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Hamlet
Claudius is a king who appears to most of his public as an able king, appointed and approved of by the counsel, who does his job efficently. In the opening of scene 2 of Act 1, Claudius tells his...
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Hamlet
Hamlet is basically isolated from everyone at the court. The only real friend he can trust is Horatio. Even Hamlet's own mother has married his uncle and Hamlet does not really know her degree of...
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Hamlet
The answer to this question is the reason why Hamlet has stood the test of time for over 400 years. There has never been a generation of audiences that couldn't see themselves in the trials and...
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Hamlet
When Horatio and Marcellus are trying to restrain Hamlet from following the Ghost, who is beckoning to him, he tells them: Why, what should be the fear?I do not set my life at a pin's fee,And for...
