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Blindness In Hamlet Research Paper

725 Words3 Pages

For many humans, seeing is believing. An old proverb instructs people to see things with their own eyes before accepting it to be the truth. Eyes are the key component of sight. Without eyes, blindness occurs. Blindness can be more than a physical limitation; it can be a mental and emotional limitation as well. In Hamlet by Shakespeare, the word “eye” is mentioned thirty nine times, making it the sixteenth most common word in the play. Before Hamlet makes any decisions, he tries to see the truth for himself. For Hamlet, the truth needed to be revealed after his father’s death, but his eyes had to prove that his father’s ghost was honest and that the rest of his family was deceiving him before he would take action. Hamlet is not the only character that relies heavily on sight to believe situations. Marcellus, Bernardo, and Horatio are standing on a guard’s platform at the royal palace waiting for a ghost to appear. Earlier Marcellus saw an apparition, yet others did not believe him. He begged Horatio to come to the platform so he could approve of their “eyes and speak” to the ghost (1.1.29). Right away, sight is being validated as proof to others. Horatio saw the ghost with his “own eyes” and certainly knew the ghost was not a figment of imagination (1.1.58). The ghost is trouble to the …show more content…

Hamlet can see his guilt. Hamlet’s family has been deceiving him by sending people to spy on him. Hamlet is aware of the deception. The Queen and Hamlet begin to talk while being spied on by Polonius. Hamlet states that his mother has “eyes without feelings”, meaning that her eyes have been blind to the brutality occurring (3.4.79). Everything Hamlet sees tells him that his family has turned a blind eye to his father’s death and the Ghost was telling the truth. Hamlet’s stream of consciousness becomes more distressed and emotional as he sees the truth. Consequently, the blur in his stream of consciousness and sight cause his

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This is explained by the Ghost when Hamlet learns of his father being murdered in Act 1 Scene 5, in lines 35 -39, “’Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard, A serpent stung me. So the whole ear of Denmark Is by a forged process of my death Rankly abused. But know, thou noble youth, The serpent that did sting thy father’s life . Now wears his crown.” 2) The soliloquies that Hamlet provides over the sequence of the entire play allows us to distinguish what Hamlet was thinking about and display how he was losing his sanity.

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After the king Hamlet died, his ghost still appeared in different places of the play. The ghost wanted to talk to his son Hamlet to tell him all the truth about what happened before he died. The first thing that he said was that he did not died by a snake bite, but killed by his brother Claudius. The ghost told Hamlet to take revenge of Claudius. The second thing that the ghost told Hamlet was that he should do no harm to his mother, even though she married her husband’s murderer.

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He starts to believe that the spirit may be the devil or some sort of demon that was sent to tempt young Hamlet into a destructive existence. The appearance of the ghost causes Hamlet to mistrust his own perceptions of things and doubt the validity of his father’s ghost and the malicious claim that he states. Hamlet decides to stage a play in which the plot very closely resembles the events that the ghost describes as his death. Hamlet feels that if King Claudius is indeed guilty, it will be written all over his face. “The play’s the thing/Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king” (II, ii, 566-567).

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The ghost’s appearance has a significant impact on Hamlet’s behaviors and forms his decisions through the play. Hamlet, who is suffering from depression since he is dealing with his father’s death and the hasty marriage of his mother with Claudius, his uncle, became obsessed with the concept of life and death after seeing his father’s ghost. In the first appearance of the ghost, he reveals the truth about the how the king has been murdered, which drives Hamlet to seek revenge, and by revenge killing his uncle. The ghost establishes a dilemma and gives Hamlet time to think about his father’s request. But Hamlet has an uncertainty about the existence of the ghost as he notes “the spirit that I have seen may be the devil, and the devil hath power T ' assume a pleasing shape” (2.2.561–563) here, Hamlet is concerned that the ghost may be the devil and questions the motivation of the ghost for killing Claudius.

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