Hamlet- the Prince of Denmark - Essay Example

? [Your [the Hamlet- The Prince of Denmark The play begins with the preparation of a mighty war. The first scene is set at night- showing its significance when conspiracies or evil things take place. Night symbolizes: death, conspiracy, evil and deep secrets, etc. and the dark nature of human beings. The king’s ghost appears in front of the watchmen again and again as if to disclose a secret. His appearance is of particular importance- he is dressed up the same way when he defeated the Norwegian army and conquered their lands. The watchmen sense that there is something of significance in the appearance of the ghost of the late king; therefore they inform Hamlet about it, who immediately decides to find out the purpose of the appearance of his father’s ghost. Claudius announces his marriage to the Queen within two months of Hamlet’s father’s death. He justifies the urgency of his decision by saying that the kingdom is in a war-like state; therefore, he had to take this step in the interest of his people, and to send a strong message to the enemy that they are still strong. “With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage.” (Shakespeare 1; ii, 12) The language in Hamlet, as in other plays by Shakespeare is used as a tool to create dramatic effects. Symbolism and imagery play a very important role in narrating the dramatic effects and characterization. The purpose of speech or dialogue is not only to express inner feelings but to draw a live and vivid picture in the minds of the readers or the audience about the characters and the plot of the play. When Hamlet awaits the ghost of his father, he proclaims: “The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.” (1; iv, 1) The ghost commands him to take revenge of his murder from his uncle, Claudius the king. He also instructs Hamlet not to harm his mother, and let Fate deal with her. Hamlet promises the ghost of his father: “Haste me to know't, that I, with wings as swift / As meditation or the thoughts of love, / May sweep to my revenge.” (35) This is a very important pledge of Hamlet upon which his life and the purpose of his life depend. Unfortunately, failure to fulfil his promise on time will lead to his tragic death. As the play shall progress, we shall see that there is an internal war being waged in the mind and soul of Hamlet. However, he could not decide how to go about things and delays the matter. During the course of procrastination, he delves deeper and deeper into madness. His madness has actually resulted from rage, disbelief, sorrow, melancholy, and his inability to take action. He wants to die and put an end to his life; he realizes that Fate has put him in a very complex situation by assigning the responsibility of avenging his father. He finds it extremely difficult to decide the course of his actions and keeps on delaying his decision. His soliloquies are a manifestation of his melancholy, despair and philosophical nature. “O cursed spite, / That ever I was born to set it right!” (1; v, 209-210) The dialogues between the King, the Queen and Hamlet are full of under tones. Hamlet is sarcastic- “Good mother” means just the opposite. He is the only person who has not recovered from the death of this father. The grief is obvious in his appearance. The concept of “play within play” is introduced in this scene; as Hamlet says to his mother: “These indeed seem, / For these are actions that a man might play.” (1; ii, 86-87) Hamlet is gradually descending in the state of madness. He has started doubting his relationship with Ophelia and even his friends sense that he has lately not been himself. “And yet to me what is this quintessence/ of dust? Man delights not me—no, nor woman neither.” (II;ii, 312-313). Hamlet is also highly aware of the voice of conscience. He plans to stage a play depicting the characters of his mother, his father and Claudius. He does so in order to awaken the conscience of his uncle and is quite successful in it because Claudius gets deeply disturbed. Though he is enraged at Hamlet; yet he feels the pricks of his conscience and slightly regrets murdering his brother. He also confesses that his ambitions were far dearer to him than the love of his brother. He tries to pray and that is the critical moment when Hamlet finds him all alone; this was the time when he could have avenged the death of his father. But seeing him pray made Hamlet change his mind and thus his tragedy became imminent. Hamlet also confronts his mother regarding the murder of his father and her remarrying so quickly, after the play. He uses such words to prick her conscience and urges her to stay away from Claudius. Hamlet also sees the downside of having a clear conscience: “Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.”(III; i, 90). His conscience does not allow him to take the life of the murderer of his father. He keeps pondering over the gravity of the situation without reaching any conclusion. The play Hamlet can be studied in a lot of different contexts. The complex human relationships are one of the core areas Shakespeare has focussed upon. “Frailty, thy name is woman” (1; i, 149); and by exclaiming thus, he generalizes that all women are weak in character and nature. This belief is of prime importance as it shall form his opinions about the women in his life in particular and human relationships in general. His feelings for his mother have changed; and suddenly, it has become difficult for him to understand his emotions and thinking. He starts seeing love between a man and a woman in a very different light. Hamlet and Ophelia were in love with each other, in spite of the difference in their social status. Ophelia’s brother and father both prohibit her to get emotionally attached to Hamlet. Love is not celebrated as a pure feeling and emotion by these two men but is viewed as something that ends in shame. Love is represented as beguile and deceitful; a feeling one might develop, while one is young but it has no reality. “The ambiguity of Shakespeare’s cryptic and contradictory references to the relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia can never be resolved to the satisfaction of everyone.” (Prosser 148) Hamlet, who once used to be affectionate towards Ophelia, became sarcastic. “I have heard of your paintings too, well enough. God / hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another. / You jig, you amble, and you lisp; and nickname God's creatures / and make your wantonness your ignorance. Go to, I'll / no more on't! it hath made me mad. I say, we will have no / more marriages. Those that are married already—all but / one—shall live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery...” (III; i, 151-157) After the play, Hamlet meets with his mother in her room and accidentally kills Polonius, who was spying on them. The king becomes wary of him and decides to deport him to England. Meanwhile, Ophelia becomes so grief stricken that she drowns herself. Hamlet returns to Denmark as soon as he finds out about the evil intentions of his uncle of killing him. On his way back, he finds out about the death of Ophelia and is deeply grieved. It is then when he realizes his loss and utters: “I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers / Could not, with all their quantity of love, / Make up my sum.” (V; i, 270-271) By that time, it was too late for him to make amends- he had failed to carry out his mission and his tragic death was approaching. Claudius had sensed that Hamlet was up to something, and therefore he conspires to get him killed by Laertes, Polonius’s son. There have been many film versions of Hamlet and the 1948 version directed by Lawrence Olivier had had seven nominations for the Academy Awards. “It is the only film adapted from one of William Shakespeare's plays to win Best Picture.” (Dirks, Filmsite.org) According to one of the critics: Hamlet might have well have been called Laurence Olivier's Hamlet: he produced it, directed it, starred in it, and condensed it down to a trim 153 minutes. Olivier's hatchet is sharp -- by comparison, the Kenneth Branagh version of the full play runs 242 minutes -- but so is his sense of good storytelling. He is perhaps more brooding and less action that many Hamlets. Nonetheless, he was for the generation that followed him the standard for acting to which others aspired. Good acting distinguishes this production, though some of the performers are clearly too old or too young for the part that they play. (Gilliam, MSN movies) Hamlet is by nature a noble man and a philosopher. “He occupies the centre of his world, the apex of his society. He is the observed of all observers and the expectancy of the state; the glass of fashion and the mould of form. Poor, unfortunate prince, he must satisfy all observers, fulfil all expectations, passively reflect all fashions and take into his soul any paste or dough in search of form! And we wonder he was unhappy!” (De Madariaga 8) It is his nature to brood over things that concern him; and his procrastination or brooding nature becomes his tragic flaw. He impulsively promises the ghost of his father that he would take revenge; but when the time comes, he lets that moment go by. He misses the opportunity to kill Claudius, even after he had made sure that he was the real murderer of his father. He mistakenly believes that he would get another chance to kill Claudius; but he never gets that chance. The reason why he doesn’t kill Claudius is that Claudius was kneeling and praying to God. Hamlet decided that he could not kill someone who was indulged in a pious act. This shows his nobility and the influence of religion in Hamlet. In the last tragic scene, when Hamlet is dying, he requests his friend Horatio to justify his act of killing Claudius, as he did not want to be remembered as a murderer. He believed in justice and wanted his people to know the truth and to remember him for his nobility. Laertes also tells him that he was not to blame for his father or his death; thus Hamlet dies a tragic, yet noble death. Work Cited: De Madariaga, Salvador. On Hamlet. 2nd ed. Oxon: Routledge, 1964. Print. Dirks, Tim. The Oscars 1940s. Filmsite. American Movie Classics Company LLC. 2010. Web < http://www.filmsite.org/aa48.html> Gillians, Richard. Hamlet: Critic’s Review. MSN Movies. Web. Hamlet. Dir. Lawrence Olivier. Carlton Video, 1948. Film. Prosser, Eleanor. Hamlet and Revenge. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1971. Print. Read More