Discussion Topic
Main characters in Hamlet
Summary:
The main characters in Hamlet include Prince Hamlet, the protagonist seeking revenge for his father's murder; King Claudius, Hamlet's uncle and the antagonist who has usurped the throne; Queen Gertrude, Hamlet's mother; Polonius, the lord chamberlain; Ophelia, Polonius's daughter and Hamlet's love interest; Laertes, Polonius's son; and Horatio, Hamlet's loyal friend.
Who are the main characters in Hamlet?
The main characters in Hamlet are as follows:
Hamlet: He is a tortured soul, grieved over his father's death and his mother's quick remarriage (to his uncle!). He becomes especially tormented when the ghost of his father appears and demands he avenge his murder by killing Claudius.
Claudius: Claudius, ambitious for the throne, cold-bloodedly murders his brother and marries his brother's wife. He doesn't regret this, as he likes the power he has and is glad to be married to Gertrude. He realizes that his biggest threat is Hamlet and works to have him killed.
Gertrude: She will confess to the frenzied Hamlet that she probably was wrong to marry Claudius, but she nevertheless remains loyal to her husband, not realizing how evil he is. Some critics believe that an Oedipal desire for his mother, enacted by Claudius, drives Hamlet's loathing of Claudius.
Polonius : A wordy...
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and pompous but sly courtier, he tries to please Claudius by finding out what is wrong with Hamlet. He gets accidentally killed by Hamlet for his efforts.
Laertes: Polonius's son and, in many ways, a "mirror" of Hamlet, Laertes comes home determined to avenge his father's death by killing Hamlet. Because he can't control his emotions, he is used by Claudius.
Ophelia (Laertes's sister), Horatio (Hamlet's friend), and the ghost are more minor characters, but they play important roles: Ophelia's suicide adds to Laertes's rage against Hamlet; Horatio is the voice of reason and the survivor who will tell the story of what went wrong in the Danish court; and the ghost sets the action of the play in motion with his revelations.
The major personality traits of Hamlet are indecisiveness, cynicism, and bitterness.
All of these traits are related to the murder of Hamlet's father by his wicked uncle and stepfather, Claudius. When the ghost of his father tells him how he was murdered, Hamlet resolves to kill Claudius out of revenge.
And yet, he spends virtually the whole play procrastinating, seemingly incapable of settling scores with old King Hamlet's murderer. Hamlet's indecisiveness is arguably his most notable character trait, the one for which he is most famous. And it holds him up from what he vowed to do all along until right up until the very end, when he fatally wounds Claudius with the tip of a poisoned sword just before his own death.
Hamlet is also a very cynical young man. In his brutal verbal assault on his mother, Gertrude, and in a similar tongue-lashing he gives to Ophelia, he shows a profound contempt for the values of the society in which he lives, so much so that it appears that Hamlet doesn't actually believe in anything. Or, as we might say, he is a nihilist.
Hamlet's cynicism is also much in evidence when he sets up his old school chums Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to be killed when he finds out that they bear a message from Claudius to the King of England requesting that Hamlet be executed. Once again, we can observe a character trait that seems to arise from Hamlet's ongoing sadness at the loss of his father.
When his father died, it seems that Hamlet lost whatever respect he had for other people. And so, his tortured soul has been hardened by cynicism, which has become for Hamlet a kind of psychological defense mechanism against a world for which he no longer cares.
Allied to Hamlet's cynicism is his bitterness. The young prince is understandably bitter at the way life has turned out for him. Not only is his father dead, but the man who murdered him has married Hamlet's mother and become safely ensconced on the Danish throne.
Who is the central character in Hamlet?
Hamlet, the title character and protagonist of the play, is the troubled young prince of Denmark. Although someone of his station may seem to be powerful and free, we see that he is not. Instead, he is put under extreme pressure and constraints as a result of his grief and supernatural visitation.
Throughout the story, we frequently get a glimpse of the analytical way in which Hamlet approaches the world. He is constantly trying to get to the truth of matters. This applies not only to the facts behind his father's death but to the actual nature of what it means to be a human and alive. The royal court at Elsinore is one of show, subterfuge, and deception. Hamlet, ever an idealist, wants to pull back the curtain of palace intrigue and expose the truth.
Through his numerous soliloquies, the audience really gets to know Hamlet and his thoughts. Hamlet is never free to speak his mind to the other characters. He feels compelled to play the part of a dutiful prince and son. Yet, when he directly addresses the audience, we see that he is a greatly conflicted young man. These conflicts revolve around a desire for revenge versus taking another's life, his mother's sexuality, and familial duties. It is no wonder that Hamlet appears mentally unbalanced. As an audience, we are often left to wonder just how much control over his faculties Hamlet actually has.
These internal conflicts lead to a great deal of indecisiveness. He struggles with making bold choices and instead frequently resorts to half-measures which just lead to more turmoil.
Hamlet is the prince of Denmark. He's the hero of the play of the same name, and a guy in a heck of a situation: his uncle killed Hamlet's father (the king), and then married Hamlet's mother, and his father's ghost wants him to take revenge. The entire play follows him as he works through this supernatural mission of justice.