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Essay Subject: Analysis of play as an open-ended drama. Comparison with other Shakespearean tragedies.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Analysis of play as an open-ended drama. Comparison with other Shakespearean tragedies. Paper Introduction: Hamlet, often lauded as William Shakespeare’s greatest dramatic work, is not the simple revenge play that it at first seems to be. Unlike the tragedy of King Lear, or even the romantic tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, there is no clear resolution to the play’s action, no clear sense that the something that is rotten in the state has been plucked out. Shakespeare’s other tragedies tend to follow a more purely classical pattern in which a character makes a terrible mistake because of some inbred flaw and has to pay for this mistake (such as Lear’s blinding pride and the tragedy that befalls him as a result). Even when the innocent die in Shakespeare’s other plays – such as the deaths of Romeo and Juliet – there is still a sense that justice has in some way been served; the death of the lovers Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. (1963). And with these lines Fortinbras ends the play, and begins the actionagain. Ham: You should not have believ'd me; for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it. There is Hamlet's murder, and theaccusation of his ghost against Laertes. 29). Newark: University of Delaware. If death had claimed the brave and wise and theinnocent along with the foolish and the guilty, at least they would haveall gone into the peace of death. Hamlet has asked - perhaps even begged - for silence as his lastrequest, and into this healing quiet Horatio inserts flights of singingangels to sing his sweet prince to rest. But Hamlet, caught up in the fever of revenge butmore possessed by it than controlling it is swept up in the events of theplay and so in the end betrays himself, Ophelia, Polonius, Rosencrantz andGuildenstern, his crown and his country. Bloomington; University of Indiana.Hankins, J. (1992). The single incident that most clearly marks Hamlet as being as deeplyinfected as the rest of the Danish court is his rejection of Ophelia, whomhe has courted with some of Shakespeare's sweetest and most eloquent wordson the subject, only to cast her off abruptly and insultingly. London: Collins.Smith, M. Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things; Some will be pardoned. Oph: Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so. Shakespeare'sother tragedies tend to follow a more purely classical pattern in which acharacter makes a terrible mistake because of some inbred flaw and has topay for this mistake (such as Lear's blinding pride and the tragedy thatbefalls him as a result). This paper examines the incomplete state ofHamlet, the sense in the play that the death and horror will continue withthe innocent as likely to suffer as the guilty. An introspective man, certainly - eventhe archetype of introspection - and yet without the moral strength finallyto take it upon himself to perform the actions required to bring an end tothe rot and violence. By the end of the action Elsinore has beentransformed into a garden of the dead, with the corpses of both theinnocent and the culpable laid in the ground like terrible seeds. Hamlet's last words before he joinsthe accumulating pile of bodies in Act V, scene ii are "the rest issilence". He does often confront evil, but never directly, andhis indirectness is very much a part of what is wrong in Denmark. Oph: Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty? 41). And thereis the sense in the end that they will produce the same kind of fruit, thatthe decay will continue. Even when the innocent die in Shakespeare's otherplays - such as the deaths of Romeo and Juliet - there is still a sensethat justice has in some way been served; the death of the lovers does seemto bring about an end to the feud. It is not simply that so many people die in thisplay, for other plays also offer not insubstantial body counts, and notonly that the innocent die here (for surely Mercutio and Romeo and Julietand the babes in arms killed in Macbeth are innocent), but that innocenceis washed in blood that only stains, never cleanses. Hamlet, for all his introspection and tendency to examine each act andmotivation with such care, in some way lacks the intellectual force to seethings clearly enough to set a course that will bring the country into amore peaceful day. This is important because there seems to be inDenmark itself no one who is not contaminated by the corruption that hasfestered throughout the court (Hankins, 1976, p. 181).Into the silence that Hamlet has asked for we hear the unmistakable bayingof the hounds of war. Berkeley: University of California.Mack, M. 81). This, and what needful else That calls upon us, by the grace of Grace, We will perform to all at once and to each one, Whom we invite to see us crowned at Scone. Fortinbras, the English ambassadors, and theirband of attendants enters and the entire mad, terrible, violence of war andintrigue and human misunderstanding begins anew (Brosely, 1992, p. Let four captains Bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage; For he was likely, had he been put on, To have prov'd most royal; and for his passage The soldier's music and the rite of war Speak loudly for him. In Romeo and Juliet and in Macbeth (to cite our previous examples), itis the proper native ruler of the place who restores order, who has thepower to restore order. To understand the ambiguous nature of Hamlet as a revenge play we mustlook closely at the ending of the work. The interpretation of his motivation and ambivalence continues tobe the subject of considerable controversy but it is linked to theubiquitous and indelible nature of the corruption in Denmark, whichincludes not just violence but also an over-abundance of sensuality and insome characters (such as Ophelia) these two forms of corruption are linked. Ham: Get thee to a nunnery. Ham: Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty into its likeness. The truthspoken plainly - and to other people, not in soliloquy - would shine out inthis place with amazing strength (Mack, 1994, p. & Sprengnether, M. What's more to do, Which would be planted newly with the time - As calling home our exil'd friends abroad That fled the snares of watchful tyranny ... Such a sight as this Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss. Unlike thetragedy of King Lear, or even the romantic tragedy of Romeo and Juliet,there is no clear resolution to the play's action, no clear sense that thesomething that is rotten in the state has been plucked out. But Hamlet is incapable of accepting that Ophelia is either pureor good or innocent, because he himself is not, and so he cannot see thesetraits in others (Hankins, 1976, p. Some contrasts will bedrawn to other Shakespearean tragedies to underscore the intentional waysin which the playwright left the action of Hamlet so essentially open-ended. Indeed, his madness is another sign of the terrible rotthat is taking over the country. This ending contrasts sharply with the ending of Romeo and Juliet, forexample, in which the playwright has made it clear that the waste of younglife has in some measure been worth it, for just as the young are oftensacrificed in war to bring a greater peace to many in their country, so toohave the young been sacrificed here. 171). Take up the bodies. Omaha: University of Nebraska.Shakespeare, W. I loved you not. Hamlet (probably written in 16 1) goes far beyond other tragedies ofrevenge in picturing the mingled sordidness and glory of the humancondition. Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? Those flights of angels form one of the most often quoted lines fromEnglish literature, and it is certainly a beautiful image, but it is alsothe resumption of the terrible events in Denmark that Hamlet's death - fora single line - put to rest. (1976). (1994). I did love you once. They would have been released from thecorrupting forces of violence and sexuality, released from all possiblecorruption by shedding their corporeal identities. 138). But the world of Denmark as seen in Hamlet's court is so corruptedthat it cannot be cleansed even by the degree of death that takes place inthe play (Smith, 191, p. Go, bid the soldiers shoot. In a classical revenge play along the lines of the Greektragedies, this would have ended the play with some sense of resolution.Certainly, the horrors would still have accumulated before us, but theywould be over with. This was sometimes a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. (1991). Hamlet feels that he is living in a world of horror; confirmedin this feeling by the murder of his father and the sensuality of hismother, he presents a pattern of crippling indecision and precipitousaction. Shakespearean tragedy. There is no guarantee thatafter such acts of despair that there will be a unification of the twosouls in heaven, and their final speeches are notably absent of rhetoricabout seeing each other on the opposite side of the grave (Garner andSprengnether, 1996, p. Ophelia might have been the oneperson who could have redeemed Hamlet and saved the royal line, but Hamletis too mired in the endless demands of a maddening revenge that demandscontinuous new victims to see that Ophelia offers him the possibility ofescape and peace (Garner and Sprengnether, 1996, p. Hamlet, often lauded as William Shakespeare's greatest dramatic work,is not the simple revenge play that it at first seems to be. ReferencesBrosely, A.C. There is his insufficiently considered sacrifice ofRosencrantz and Guildenstern. Shakespearean tragedy and gender. The character of Hamlet. Through all of this horror, Hamlet is strikingly aware of the factthat something is deeply wrong in the Danish court, and yet does not everseem to come to terms with the fact that he is one of the centralinstigators of all of the misery. My Thanes and kinsmen, Henceforth be Earls, the first that ever Scotland In such an honour name'd. But still the play ends with this promise ofjustice (and the peace that Hamlet asks for) and resolution by the prince: A glooming peace this morning with it brings The sun for sorrow will not show his head. We shall not make a large expense of time Before we reckon with your several loves, And make us even with you. Little surprise that there shouldin the end be so peace for Hamlet. Hamlet sees this in terms of the betrayalsof his father but he fails to see how he himself is part of the samepattern of blindly seeking to hurt others and never having the strength torise above the violence. As comparisons with two of Shakespeare's other tragedies should makeclear, much of the disturbingly dark psychological tone of Hamlet comesfrom the sense that the tragedy in it has had no purpose and offers nopossibility of resolution. (III, I, 1 6-122) Polonius will conclude that Hamlet is mad for the way in which hetreats Ophelia and think that it is love that has driven him mad. Tragedies. Although again it should be noted thatthere is some degree of ambiguity in the neatness of the ending, for inthis Catholic setting Shakespeare has had his hero and heroine die by theirown hands, thus committing unpardonable sins. Oph: I was the more deceived. Everybody's Shakespeare: Reflections chiefly on the tragedies. It is striking that at the end of Hamlet it is Fortinbras, the princeof Norway, who ends the play, a foreigner who comes in and begins the nextchapter of the action. A number of incidents throughout the play are instrumental inestablishing the rottenness of Denmark. But Hamlet's actions toward Ophelia make much sense if we considerthem as the symptoms of a madness already implanted far before he falls inlove with Ophelia (who has after all done nothing to drive him mad; this isno example of a love denied or betrayed, at least not on the part ofOphelia). New York: Penguin.Garner, S. 97). Others punished." And to belabor the point (for it is not initially obvious in readingthe end of these tragedies how very different Hamlet is) we can look to theending of Macbeth, a nicely constructed series of actions andcounteractions that leave us with both revenge and mercy accomplished.Malcolm enters to cast his hand of forgiveness and peace over the scene,supplanting blood and carnage with a promise of Scotland's bright future. There is the rejection by Hamlet(the son) of Ophelia, and her madness and death as a result, a terrible actthat he compounds when he kills Polonious and compounds still further withhis killing of Laertes. The darker world within: Evil in the tragedies of Shakespeare and his successors. But Hamlet has barely spoken these words of benediction and followedthe others into the great unknown of death when Horatio immediately negatesthem. (1996). If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or We can write a Custom Essay just for you.