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Hamlet Marxist Lens Essay

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When looking at the play Hamlet with a Marxist lens, a great number of occurrences hit the reader’s eye. There is a particular boundary between the high class/nobles and the low class/peasants. Similar to what happens in other kinds of societies, the higher class is treated in a much better way than the lower class. The royal members’ errors are forgiven and their faults are entirely covered up. For example, not one person implicates the act of Claudius, when he murdered the king in order to take a seat on the throne. The lower class citizens have very little existence in the play to show that the play could still be complete even without it. Act 5, scene 1 can also be analyzed using the view of the Marxist lens. In this scene, the gravediggers …show more content…

The two dig a grave for Ophelia’s body. The two clowns seem to not be in agreement and on the same terms of whether or not she should be given a Christian burial ceremony. This is in view of the fact that Ophelia died after committing suicide and drowning herself in the water. “She drowned herself wittingly”, (239-240). The first clown feels she should not be given a Christian burial. On line 231, it is declared that if she was worth having a Christian burial, then she should be given one. According to Christian customs, someone who has committed suicide should not be given a Christian burial. This is because she committed a sin, which cannot be …show more content…

The first clown begins to sing as he proceeds on to dig. Hamlet questions why the clown is chanting as he is digging a grave. In Hamlet’s perspective, digging a grave should be considered a sad mournful activity. The graveyard was probably not the best place to chant carols and sing. This makes it know that the gravedigger was repulsed by someone being given a Christian burial due to the fact that she was part of the elite high class. To the gravedigger, this occupation was similar to any other digging he had done before and there were no feelings attached to

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