Examples Of Blizzard Of Death In Hamlet

John Paul Jacob

Ms. Williams

English - VIIB

17 January 2023

Hamlet’s Blizzard of Death

Silhouetted like a dark snow-cloud, death looms on the horizon of Denmark throughout Hamlet. After the death of King Hamlet, the erratic snow-cloud often smothers the Danes within its blizzard, each man left starkly isolated from all others until the end of each storm. Some, hardened by previous storms, are able to navigate the blizzard without issue and even assist others in finding their way through the flurry. Others, with more malevolent purposes, use the storm as an opportunity to further their own career at their countryman’s expense. The story of Hamlet begins with the prince Hamlet himself caught unawares in the storm of death, reeling from its sudden

Undoubtedly, the blizzard of death is upon him. Hamlet’s first vision of death is that of a rancorous evil which ripped his father away from him without warning, while his second vision is that of a release, an alluring escape from this “rank and gross” world (Shakespeare 1.2). At the root of this incongruous perspective of Hamlet is hidden the mystery which Hamlet cannot seem to solve—that of religion. Hamlet laments that God has “fix'd His canon 'gainst self-slaughter,” but does not understand why God has done this (Shakespeare 1.2). Through his inaction, Hamlet is following more closely his heart than his head, the wit and sharp reason which in some ways characterizes him. Hamlet’s fear of the unknown, that is, the afterlife, forces him to confront his conflicting perspectives and reconcile them, eventually forming a more realistic and mature outlook upon the world and its

There is a general consensus between scholars that the speech concerns death, but there is no consensus as to which manner of death it concerns. Davis McElroy and Alex Newell, for example, posit that the question is really one of action against the king Claudius, with death as something of a likely secondary consequence (Petronella 73). A. C. Bradley and Tucker Brooke suggest that the speech is actually a contemplation of suicide, that “to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them” (Shakespeare 3.1), would comprise ending oneself rather than the troubles (Petronella 75). Irving Richards and Hiram Haydn describe Hamlet’s dilemma as one centered around the conscience rather than despair (Petronella 74); as established in the beginning of the play, Hamlet’s spiritual dichotomy imposes upon himself a sort of conscientious inertia, uncertain even of his own will to live. Frozen still within the blizzard of death, the most essential question of all becomes unanswerable: “To be or not to