Hamlet - William Shakespeare

Hamlet - William Shakespeare

This play talks about revenge, hate but also about love and sorrow.

Hamlet, Denmark's king, was killed by the brother, Claudius, seduced his wife, Queen Gertrude. Hamlet, son of the dead king, knew this facts meeting father's ghost, and to revenge him he pretended to be crazy. Polonius, the chamberlain, believed that it was for the refusing of Ophelia's love, so king and queen organized a meeting between Hamlet and Ophelia to see the truth. Some actors arrived at court and Hamlet thought to make them represent his father's murder to see Claudius' reaction. After the play Gertrude met Hamlet alone and the king sent Polonius to listen to their discussion. Hamlet realized there was somebody behind a curtain and killed him thinking he was the king. Ophelia, for this fact's sorrow and for the refused love, killed herself. Claudius held with Laertes, son of Polonius, to have a match with Hamlet. During the duel, Hamlet kills Laertes, but he is in his turn mortally wounded. Mean while Gertrude drinks from a poisoned cup prepared from Hamlet and dies. Soon after stabbing the king and making him, drink off the rest of the poisoned cup, dies in the arms of his only friend, Horatius.

Hamlet focuses on the complications arising from love and death and betrayal, without offering the audience a decisive and positive resolution to these complications. This is due, in part, to the simple fact that, for Hamlet, there can be no definitive answers to life's most daunting questions. Indeed, Hamlet's world is one of perpetual ambiguity. Although those around him can and do act upon their thoughts, Hamlet is stifled by his consuming insecurities. From the moment Hamlet confronts the spirit of his father, and consistently throughout the play from that point on, what he is sure of one minute he doubts the next. Hamlet knows that it is the spirit of his father on the castle wall, and he fully understands its unmistakable cry for revenge. But, when he is alone, Hamlet rejects what he has witnessed in a maelstrom of doubt and fear.

Mystery is the main trait of Hamlet's behaviour and it's shown at first in his madness' ambiguity. At court Hamlet behaves and talks as a madman, but he reveals to behave in that way voluntarily. The marriage between his mother and his uncle, only two months after father's death, makes Hamlet very sad and gloomy, as when he knows about the murder talking with his father's ghost. His aim is the revenge, even if he never makes concrete deeds; rather he pretends to be crazy.

This play is a demonstration of how many problems men have got. Most of them don't have concrete reactions because of their thoughts. I didn't like so much this kind of story; I can't identify myself into this particular situation.