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Why Is Hamlet's Eternal Life

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Undoubtedly, there are many people wanted to have eternal life. However, Hamlet did not. Hamlet was one of the most famous tragedy written by Shakespeare. The story was about a Denmark Prince named Hamlet revenged for his father, who was killed by Hamlet’s uncle, and cursed the death of his lover, his mother, his uncle and himself. The main character Hamlet was struggled about suicide serval times in the whole play. Meanwhile, he wandered that all humans were capable of suicide, but they chose to bare the cruelty, pain of the world, instead of suiciding themselves. This essay aims to analyze the reason human beings chose to live by analyzing the texts morally, religiously, and aesthetically. Hamlet thought his life was so miserable to accept, so he wanted release. “O, that this too too solid flesh would melt” (I.ii 129-158) was emerged after he was not able to leave Denmark and forced to live with his remarried mother and his disgust step-father (his …show more content…

Christians believed that people either got eternal life or eternal damnation. It clearly showed in psalm that suicide is equal to murder, and only God can decided the final destiny of single person. In the play,Hamlet’s question “To be or not to be” also can be inferred as why humans should abound the chance to have a love and peaceful afterlife by killing themselves. His question further approved the punishment brought by suicide. Moreover, this play showed the principle of Christianity by the funeral of Ophelia. “Is she to be buried in Christian burial when she willfully seeks her own salvation?” (Hamlet Act 5 scene 1) These two gravediggers argued whether Ophelia deserved a funeral, since she was suicided. Their idea approved that suicide was religiously forbidden at that time. Therefor, another reason that Hamlet did not choose suicide was because it was against the God, by thinking it will be better if suicide was not the sin against

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Hamlet is a story about revenge and power, due to the recent death of the King of Denmark. The following events include madness, which leads to Hamlet killing King Claudius’ advisor, Polonius. Word about the death of his father got to Laertes who was in England. Laertes returned to Denmark to find his sister distraught and drove to madness. Shortly after his return, Ophelia is found dead by the cause of drowning.

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Hamlet is a powerful story of love, life, revenge, and death. The themes within the play are written to live on for eternity. It is difficult to fully and accurately represent a play as great as this one. The movie that we watched in class did not wholly represent the wonders and the magnitude of the themes within Shakespeare’s work.

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Throughout the play, Hamlet has various points where he is confronted with suicidal thoughts or attempts. Throughout Hamlet’s first soliloquy “Oh, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt, / Thaw resolve itself into a dew, / Or that the Everlasting had not fixed/ His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter! Oh God, God!”

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Throughout the play Hamlet, it is discovered that Hamlet goes through many ordeals in such a short period of time and these ordeals altered his perspective on life. In the play, we learn what Hamlet’s perspective is, how his perspective is formed, and how it affects the meaning of the play. To begin with, through Hamlet soliloquies, we learn what Hamlet’s perspective on life is. At the beginning of the play, it is revealed that Hamlet believes life is worthless. This is evident in his “to be or not to be” soliloquy.

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Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, centers around Hamlet’s contemplation of killing his uncle in order to avenge his father’s death. His decisions and values determine his fate. However, Hamlet’s intended action to avenge his father’s death is continuously postponed due to his moral dilemma. However, this moral dilemma causes him to make the decisions he does, and therefore, demonstrates the theme of his uncertainty versus his faith. Not only does faith stop him from taking alternative routes to achieve his goal, but his uncertainty causes him to either delay his revenge or make the wrong decisions.

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Death is one of the most prominent themes in Hamlet, appearing in different forms. Shakespeare displays death through the suicide of Ophelia, Hamlet’s own thoughts and eventual suicide, and the murder of King Hamlet and Polonius. Hamlet displays suicidal tendencies throughout the play through his soliloquies. The first time that Hamlet contemplates committing suicide is when Gertrude and Claudius tell him that he has to stay in Denmark in Act one. “Oh, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew, or that the Everlasting had not fixed his canon ‘gainst self-slaughter!

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He maintains that his life has no value throughout the play and contemplates suicide. Hamlet's questioning thoughts on life's worth is further expressed the ten lines of 203-212 in act V scene i. which read ““No, faith, not a jot, but to follow him thither/ with modesty enough and likelihood to lead it:/ Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander retur-/ neth to dust, the dust is earth, of earth we make/ loam, and why of that loam whereto he was con-/ verted might they not stop a beer-barrel?/ Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay,/ Might stop a hole to keep the wind away./ O that the earth which kept the world in awe/ Should patch a wall t' expel the winter's flaw!” Hamlet speaks these lines during an exchange with the gravediggers, one who was singing and juggling skulls while he worked. In these lines, Hamlet explains how no one's life is really worth anything because, in the end, we are all reduced to corpses, skulls, dust, and clay. By using Alexander and Caesar as examples, two influential and powerful leaders of

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In the “To be or not to be” soliloquy, Hamlet says, “To die, to sleep/ No more—and by a sleep to say we end/ The heartache and the thousand natural shocks/ That flesh/ is heir to—’tis a consummation/ Devoutly to be wished!”(3.1 61-64) Proving that he is so distraught about taking action against his uncle that he believes that death would be an easier alterative to losing his purity and innocence. He ultimately decides that suicide is not the answer, “With this regard their currents turn awry/ And lose the name of action,” (3.1 88-89) because he cannot take the uncertainty of the afterlife. This entire soliloquy also highlights Hamlets delayed action to his problems.

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Throughout the play, suicide is mention by Hamlet and the suicide that he mentions is something that is related with death and decay. The prime idea of this play is about a mystery of death which then causes revenge. This prime idea then lead every single action of Hamlet throughout the play as, his action mostly is in order to seek revenge for the death of his death father, King of Denmark. Hamlet’s father appears to Hamlet as a ghost and tells him that he was murdered by Claudius.

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1427 Words | 6 Pages

In “Hamlet” a tragedy written by William Shakespeare, the death of a character is an occurring event. William Shakespeare uses imagery and allusion to demonstrate the result of manipulation from other characters upon Ophelia, daughter of Polonius, and leading up to her death. Her death was not the consequence of disgraceful actions of her own, but rather by the involvement of others and their influence on her life. Hamlet’s apparent rejection of her love and her father’s personal vindictive leads up to her simple-minded state, entering a world of madness. She has now gone mad, singings nonsense songs and giving people flowers that she has picked from the garden.

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1306 Words | 6 Pages

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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880 Words | 4 Pages

Hamlet’s ability to overthink situations or decisions makes him conclude that committing suicide might be the easy way out of his indecisiveness. Hamlet overthinks every problem that is happening. He overthinks so much that he cannot make up his decision about what to do with the problem. The cluelessness that is going on within his mind makes him lose his mental status, life and the love of his life. Hamlets actions are hypnotized by his thoughts: “Thus Conscience does make cowards of us all, And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pitch and moment, With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action” (3.1.85-90).

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When Hamlet encounters his Father death, he becomes obsessed with death itself. He begins to wonder if suicide is the answer to end his suffering. In the play, hamlet says “O, that this too sullied flesh would melt, Thaw and resolve itself into a dew”(I.ii.133-138).

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In his soliloquy, he is asking himself whether it is better to live or to die, which he is considering to commit suicide. Also, in the soliloquy, Hamlet states that “Who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscovered country from whose bourn No traveler returns, puzzles the will And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of?” (3.1.84-90). He explains that no one would like to live in an exhausting life, unless they don’t know what is going to happen after they die because they are afraid of what their after life is going to be. Both these quotes prove that the death symbol is always surrounded by Hamlet and he has a hard time to choose between life and

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From the text, one can understand that morality and religion were closely linked; therefore, I will treat the moral and religious aspect of suicide as one. In Hamlet´s days, suicide was considered a sin by the church, and people who died due to this would not receive a proper Christian burial. In Hamlet, Ophelia is only buried at a graveyard due to her status and her family´s close ties with the royal family. The priest still refused to treat her death as anything but a suicide, and this only emphasises the role Christianity played in society. Faith and righteousness were two things one could not live without, and the religious norms were to be followed.

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