Fuseli's Portrayal Of The Ghost In Hamlet

The appearance of the ghost of Hamlet’s father has played a vital role in Hamlet. The ghost has been met with complete shock as well delivering a sense of purpose to Hamlet. The paintings above by Henry Fuseli and Richard Dadd both portray to an appearance by the ghost during different scenes in the play. Both of the paintings shown above do an excellent job of showing the characters’ shock when seeing the ghost. In the first painting by Fuseli, he accurately shows how Horatio was met with feelings of “fear and wonder,” by showing Horatio looking at the ghost in awe but still keeping his distance from it out of fear (1.1.54). The second painting, done by Dadd, is also effective in conveying the shock of Hamlet when he is visited by the ghost. As it can be seen, Hamlet appears as if he is taken completely by surprise and as if he is about to fall out the chair. Meanwhile, his mother, who

The portrayal of the ghost in Fuseli’s painting is extremely accurate when the text of the play is looked at. Fuseli portrays the ghost as the living king with a halo around his head. This is what the reader would picture when Bernardo pointed out that the ghost looked “like the king that’s dead (1.1.51).” Fuseli painting the ghost like he did added a realistic effect to the painting. Instead of having to visualize what the ghost would look like, he added in a physical being for the viewer to see. By showing the intimidating apparition the viewer understands where the fear Horatio and Bernardo are feeling comes from. The lack of ghost in Dadd’s painting takes away from the painting. In this painting, the viewer is the same as Hamlet’s mother in the sense that the ghost is not visible. It must be inferred that Hamlet is surprised by the appearance of the ghost of the father and not simply in shock over the murder he