Shakespeare: Hamlet - Thesis Example

Hamlet makes one attempt after other to accomplish his goal, but each attempt is a failure because his plans are jeopardized by those human shortcomings which reveal him as neither a super hero, nor a moral aberration, but as a sample of ordinary humanity (MacCary 96). At the end of the play Hamlet learns to accept the order of the universe and to become a passive instrument in the hands of a purposeful and benign destiny. Once Hamlet does so, he is able to accomplish his mission irrespective of his own human frailties and failings.

Like all men, Hamlet is required to die, but Hamlet’s death in a way also turns out to be his victory, for through his encounter with the evil, he comes to understand the essential nature of evil and the means required to oppose this evil (Levy 85). Once Hamlet attains this knowledge, he is totally ready to achieve salvation. Shakespeare has cast Hamlet in a pattern which affirms a purposeful moral order. The lesser characters in Hamlet merely serve supporting functions. They represent the moral forces and moral stands, and this in a way makes them represent the humanity in the large.

Thus in that context it makes the castle of Elsinore the whole world. Hamlet’s Infirmities The first act of the play reveals the human infirmities of prince Hamlet. He appears to be an ordinary mortal for all intents and purposes, whom grief has overtaken and almost defeated. He is also marred by a sense of his own unworthiness and weakness. In fact the readers do feel that it is not entirely something that is solely personal, but rather an unavoidable aspect of the society in which Hamlet is born and in fact even of the whole human race.

Hamlet is shown as broken person contemplating suicide and who intends to give up the plan of avenging his father’s death because religion forbids him from doing so (Levy 86). Denmark appears to him a garden in which things that are debased and evil tend to grow. Hamlet desires to restore it to its state of immaculate health and purity. Obstacles Hamlet’s path is beset with obstacles, but here Shakespeare’s emphasis seems to be more on the intellectual and psychological obstacles than the merely physical ones.

Hamlet is to make sure whether the Ghost is what it claims to be, or an evil spirit from the hell, which has arrived to demolish him. He must also adjust to the notion of private revenge and accept the view that a benevolent force rules the world which reserves the punishment for all evil doing to itself. Hamlet is required to somehow adjust to a world where a person’s own mother may be the source of much evil and corruption. Hamlet is required to bridle his powerful and primitive passions that time and again overpower his rational faculties (Levy 87).

Missed Opportunities In the first two acts Shakespeare depicts the atmosphere of evil that has engulfed Denmark, and in the appearance of the Ghost and the initial encounter between Hamlet and Claudius he makes clear and delineates the scope of Hamlet’s task and the difficulties which he could expect to face. The third act consists of three episodes, in each of which Hamlet gets an opportunity to entrap the king, which are the nunnery scene, the mouse trap, and the scene in Gertrude’s closet.

In each of these three situations the circumstances place the advantage on Hamlet’