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Kenneth Branagh The Ghost Analysis

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I watched the 1996 version by Kenneth Branagh and I will try not to repeat what has already been effectively said. The richness in set designs and the utmost care for detailed descriptions of places, elaborated, colorful costumes, as well as the music itself opened it to a much wider audience than theatergoers when it first appeared 20 years ago (Branagh constant challenge). In a certain sense, the Ghost is present from the very beginning of the play even before it shows. In fact, we already know something about him before his first appearance. The Ghost first appears to Bernardo, Marcellus and Horatio. His full figure in armor is lifted in mid-air, majestic, awe-inspiring, detached and his face is not visible; like a sculpture on a church façade. Horatio recognizes him: "Is it not like the King?" asks Marcellus. "As thou are to thyself" Horatio answers. The prediction sets in when Horatio says: "in the gross and scope of my opinion this bodes some strange eruption to our state." …show more content…

An omen of disgrace, a new war and the tension is back as the Ghost reappears. He is still far away, but now his face can be partly seen. Horatio does not receive answers to his questions and calls him "illusion". The news of the Ghost appearance is a premonition to Hamlet: "My father 's spirit - in arms. All is not well. I doubt some foul play". In the last framing of act 2 Hamlet leafs through an antique book and stops at a page titled "Demons their Number and Nature". Finally, father and son meet and tragedy sets in; it will not stop until the final bloodbath of which the Ghost is the "Deus ex machina" and so he will

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I looked down at my uncles dead still body and I did not recognize him. He laid there in a coffin dressed in a deep black suit so uncanny to his normal casual attire of navy blue sweatpants and a maroon sweater. Where was his black thinly rimmed glasses that hung off of his large nose? Why was his dark brown hair neatly slicked back off his forehead when it always messily hung over his hazel eyes?

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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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Almost every character in the tragedy, Hamlet by Shakespeare intentionally or unintentionally deceives others by not showing who they really are or how they really feel. Hamlet is the greatest example of deceiving others because throughout the whole play he is never truly showing who he is or how he feels unless he’s alone and the audience or readers are the only ones who really know who he truly is. How ever what the readers and audience cannot decide on is whether or not hamlet deceives the other characters on purpose for a greater accomplishment or do the events that occur to him really change who he was in the beginning of the play. The plays main focus is based on hamlet’s way of viewing the other characters and how to make them feel like he wants them to feel. Hamlet deceives them so he can get everyone to think the way he wants them to think.

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Throughout the play Hamlet most of the conflict comes from Hamlet's internal struggle of deciding whether he should trust the words and appearance of the ghost of his father. Just like a student trying to finish an essay, his procrastination has made him more eager to carry out the act but that dire obligation he so badly wants to fulfill can't be done without any sound proof that he strives to find. This comes to show Hamlet's inability to trust the Ghost because he didn't believe that the existence of the ghost of his father would be possible, he believed that the apparition might be a devil trying to lure him in to committing an unjustified act, and he needed to rely on Claudius’s reaction to the play to validate his trust with the Ghost. At the start of the play, Hamlet is awestruck and dubious about the Ghost because during his first meeting with the apparition, he was so stunned of the supernatural sighting that he felt skeptical if it was even possible for such an episode to happen.

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When Hamlet is assured by the ghost of his father, that Claudius was the cause

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In the play Hamlet, we find that Hamlet meets with his father’s ghost, and about his father murder by the hands of blood related brother, Hamlet takes a decision, to revenge and restore the glory back

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When Hamlet meets with the ghost King Hamlet in the opening scene, he realizes that his father is murdered by Claudius. From Act I scene 5, the ghost King Hamlet is asking Hamlet to seek for revenge, “So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear” (1.5.12). By knowing this, Hamlet starts the revenge for his father and sets the tone of the entire play where death, revenge, murder, and suicide become the symbols of the whole play, and leads to the deaths of almost all the characters, including Claudius, Laertes, Polonius, Ophelia, Queen Gertrude, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and Hamlet himself. Also, because of his father’s death and his mother’s quick marriage with Claudius, Hamlet has the idea of committing suicide. From Act I scene 2, "O, that this too sullied flesh would melt,Thaw, and resolve itself to dew" (1.2.133-134).

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First, King Hamlet’s ghost affects action when he first appears in the play. When he first appears, he doesn’t even speak. When he finally does speak, he only talks to his son, Prince Hamlet. The ghost says, “I am thy father’s spirit… Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder” (1.5.9,25 Hamlet).

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Hamlet faces many problems in the play. The first problem he faces is King of Denmark which is his father died. In the play, Hamlet suffers from depression. The play Hamlet Is like a love triangle. A big topic in the play is incest, incest is a sexual activity with a close relative or family members.

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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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This is due to the ghost having to get through to Hamlet in a different way, and for a different reason in each appearance. The first appearance of the ghost is to a duo of soldiers, Bernardo and Marcellus and a visitor of Denmark Horatio. The ghost in this scene is recognized as the king dressed in his full armor. When asked by Horatio to reveal its secret, the cock crows signaling morning, and the ghost disappears. The meaning of this

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The ghost also reveals that his death was no accident and was murdered by his brother Claudius and should be revenged. These events challenged Hamlet and cast’s a burden to his moral faith. Hamlet decides to not act quickly with his plans of revenge considering there was no evidence to prove that Claudius killed his

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