Hamlet
- Submitted by: cazzscott
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- Category: English: Shakespeare
- Date Submitted: 10/23/2010 08:05 PM
- Pages: 4
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How do clashing values help shape the tragedy as timeless?
William Shakespeare’s Hamlet explores the clashing values of morality. While these themes were present in the social and religious constructs of the Elizabethan context, they still remain highly relevant to the contemporary audience. Within the play, Shakespeare’s characterisation of prince Hamlet as ambivalent highlights clashing values of morality in his decision to enact revenge for his father’s death.
Within the play, Hamlet’s world is one of corruption and betrayal as he is faced with the dilemma of the death of the King and marriage of Gertrude and Claudius. In Act 1 Scene 2, Shakespeare characterizes Hamlet as a man, a thinker capable of questioning the purpose of existence, allowing him to become the one reality among the deceit. Within this scene, Hamlet is plagued with notions of morality as he sees life as “weary, stale, flat and unprofitable”, in which he deems not worth living due to this dilemma. In Hamlet’s passionate soliloquy, “O that this too too solid flesh’’, the imagery and broken syntax conveys Hamlet’s angst and disgust towards his mother’s, Gertrude, corruption. Hamlet believes that lust motivates her actions rather than chastity and sensibility ‘O most wicked speed, to post with such dexterity to incestuous sheets.’ Shakespeare employs black humour, with Hamlet bitterly joking about “funeral baked meats”. We see here his disgust in his mother’s sexual nature, which has been read by Freudian critics as a symptom of his own ambiguously possessive feelings towards Gertrude, while my contemporary view is that the psychological dilemma faced by Hamlet puts him in a state of trauma in which he feels death as the only escape. This corrupt world is sustained throughout the play, enhancing Shakespeare’s commentary on the deception and corruption present in the world, and the confusion this causes, which speaks to all contexts.
The character of Hamlet himself is a man tortured...
William Shakespeare’s Hamlet explores the clashing values of morality. While these themes were present in the social and religious constructs of the Elizabethan context, they still remain highly relevant to the contemporary audience. Within the play, Shakespeare’s characterisation of prince Hamlet as ambivalent highlights clashing values of morality in his decision to enact revenge for his father’s death.
Within the play, Hamlet’s world is one of corruption and betrayal as he is faced with the dilemma of the death of the King and marriage of Gertrude and Claudius. In Act 1 Scene 2, Shakespeare characterizes Hamlet as a man, a thinker capable of questioning the purpose of existence, allowing him to become the one reality among the deceit. Within this scene, Hamlet is plagued with notions of morality as he sees life as “weary, stale, flat and unprofitable”, in which he deems not worth living due to this dilemma. In Hamlet’s passionate soliloquy, “O that this too too solid flesh’’, the imagery and broken syntax conveys Hamlet’s angst and disgust towards his mother’s, Gertrude, corruption. Hamlet believes that lust motivates her actions rather than chastity and sensibility ‘O most wicked speed, to post with such dexterity to incestuous sheets.’ Shakespeare employs black humour, with Hamlet bitterly joking about “funeral baked meats”. We see here his disgust in his mother’s sexual nature, which has been read by Freudian critics as a symptom of his own ambiguously possessive feelings towards Gertrude, while my contemporary view is that the psychological dilemma faced by Hamlet puts him in a state of trauma in which he feels death as the only escape. This corrupt world is sustained throughout the play, enhancing Shakespeare’s commentary on the deception and corruption present in the world, and the confusion this causes, which speaks to all contexts.
The character of Hamlet himself is a man tortured...