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Death In Hamlet Research Paper

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Death is something that is majorly overlooked within Shakespeare plays. In Hamlet we see how Hamlet, Claudius, Polonius, Ophelia, and Laertes experience death as an active impassive result. In Hamlet, every character has a different vantage point on how they expect the outcome of each character's life may be. But, what they don't realize is that the person they are trying to get revenge for also has a plan. By not realizing that their thoughts and actions have consequences, we see how death can affect each character as an active impassive result. Death not only affects the person who is dying, but also the people who are involved in the situation. In the beginning of Hamlet, He is very upset in that fact that his father has been murdered …show more content…

Laertes knew that if he was going to duel, it was going to be for revenge and that he was going to kill Hamlet.(Ghose) He knew that he had to poison the end of his sword so that even if it did not penetrate him, he would still have a swipe of poison. He also would poison wine so that in case he was thirsty, he would drink it and be killed that way. When they began the duel, Hamlet had the intent of killing Laertes and Claudius.(Foster) He also had poisoned wine for them to drink. Instead of the drink, giving to Laertes and Claudius, Gertrude unknowingly drank the wine, which poisoned her and killed her. (Bookcaps). Hamlet swiped the sword on Laertes and he was poisoned and it killed him. Hamlet had been swiped also but the poison had not killed him yet. He knew that before he died that he needed to get back at Claudius. He also knew that he had one last chance to kill Claudius. Hamlet then went and stabbed Claudius with a poisoned knife. Then, there was silence because everyone had been killed except for Horatio. Hamlet had caused a chain reaction between everyone and in the beginning if he would have stuck with his plan to only kill Claudius, maybe thing so would have ended differently but again, death is shown as an active impassive

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He then kills Claudius by pouring poison down his throat and stating, “drink off this poison” (5.2.319). In the end, Hamlet getting the truth and revenge from Laertes and Claudius led to nothing but death and tragedy. This ultimately proves how Hamlet hated Claudius for killing his father, but his revenge against Claudius led him to become Claudius, a murderer who caused the deaths of

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His willingness to conspire with Claudius and deceive Hamlet into thinking that it is a fair fight. Eager to get his revenge, Laertes “[dips] a knife in” the poison so that nothing “can save [Hamlet] from death,” demonstrating the damaging consequences of acting on desires for revenge through deception (IV, vii, 159). In the end, Laertes does end up wounding and therefore killing Hamlet, however, “Laertes, as he himself admits, ‘is justly killed by [his] own treachery’ (5.2.297),” by also getting stabbed by the same poisoned blade

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After the death of her father, Ophelia goes mad, and ends up committing suicide. This drives Laertes to hate Hamlet with all his might, and plans to poison Hamlet with the help of the King. Laertes challenges Hamlet to a dual, and they were planning to poison Laertes sword as well as Hamlet’s wine. The plan goes exactly the opposite they were expecting; Hamlet does get cut with the poisoned blade but his mom ends up drinking the poisoned wine. Laertes gets poisoned with the blade as well, and the king dies by Hamlets

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Shakespeare presents death as an inevitable act of life, noting that all that is living must eventually come to an end. Due to “Hamlet” being a Shakespearean tragedy, the theme of death recurs throughout the play. Additionally, Shakespeare can be seen as using revenge as the main motive of a character’s murder, which makes “Hamlet” a revenge tragedy. The tragic nature means that by the end of the play, majority of the characters would have died. In this case, many of the characters have died due to murder or suicide.

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