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Hamlet Mortality Essay

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Hamlet Essay: The Theme of Mortality The truth is: death is inevitable. Everyone will ultimately face death and many fear this certain encounter because it’s the fear of the unknown. No human being can predict what will happen in the afterlife and that’s why so many people set their hopes into religion. Religion gives people a purpose to believe; it’s to add comfort from the fear of not knowing. All in all, the complexities of life and death remain unanswered, but people continue searching. Hamlet is written by the famous writer William Shakespeare and was first published in 1603. This tragic play takes place in Elsinore, Denmark where a young prince named Hamlet recently experienced a loss of a father and yearns for revenge. While in the …show more content…

Hamlet even contemplates on his own life and seeks suicide to end his suffering in the real world. With the usage of metaphors, symbolism, and soliloquies, Shakespeare is able to carry out his theme of mortality successfully. There are many instances when Hamlet witnessed the spirit of his deceased father. Particularly, in the beginning of the act when Old Hamlet’s “canonized bones, hearsed in death, have burst their cerements” ( Act 1, Scene 2) to inform and tempt Hamlet to take revenge against King Claudius. Shakespeare utilizes this metaphor to compare Hamlet’s father’s bones to the holiness of a saint in order to emphasize the good in the deceased king who was unjustly murdered. By using this comparison, King Hamlet is overly depicted as a victim, which makes Hamlet’s mission for revenge even more significant. This supernatural being who appeared out of nowhere has the reader questioning if Hamlet should actually trust this ghost who …show more content…

They were making a grave for the recently deceased Ophelia. While digging, Yorick’s skull appears and Hamlet attains nostalgic childhood memories of the court jester. When Hamlet held the skull and stared directly at it, he mentions how he does not “know how many times [he] kissed the lips that used to be right [there]”(Act 5 Scene 1). From this moment, Hamlet realizes that everyone will “returneth to dust” even “Alexander” or “Caesar” who is “dead and turned to clay”. Yorick’s skull acts as an important symbol in Hamlet because it represents the permanence of death. Shakespeare uses this symbol to show the audience that everyone will eventually reach the same fate and that differentiating factors like class and race will no longer matter. This turning point for Hamlet helps him understand the ultimate deterioration of the physical body and how the social structure is

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What significance does Yorick’s skull hold in the Hamlet? One of William Shakespeare's most well-known tragedies is Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, typically abbreviated as Hamlet. The play is set in Denmark and depicts Prince Hamlet's vengeance against his uncle, Claudius, who murdered his father in order to usurp the throne of Denmark and marry Hamlet's mother. The use of literary devices as a means of setting tone, or establishing meaning through various symbols is often seen in many of Shakespeare’s plays, but particularly in Hamlet. Most of these symbols are timeless; representing the predictability and monotony of human nature.

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People have been curious about what happens after death for the longest time. This question has been asked for the longest time and is still being asked. The Cleveland Clinic states that “it’s normal to fear death because of the unknowns.” This lines up with Hamlet's views because he does not know if death is better or worse than life. In his state of fear, he is distraught and confused.

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(Greenblatt, 412) the skull is now a reminder of the finality of death. Hamlet is looking directly into the face of death literally (looking at Yoricks skull) and philosophically. He contemplates how the jester and Alexander the Great could have ended in the same exact place. The idea leads him to believe that death is common and it is inevitable. Yoricks skull now develops the theme of death because it is the first time Hamlet physically sees death seemingly giving him a more mature perspective of

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Hamlet is upset because after everyone dies they become nothing, but a skull. He references Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar on

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Yorick’s skull, which Hamlet discovers in the graveyard in the first scene of Act V. He is fixated on the concept of death’s inevitability that no one can avoid death and is particularly fascinated by the appearance of the disintegration of a body. An example is when he traced the skull’s mouth and says, “Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft,” indicating his fascination with the physical consequences of death. It is an important symbol because throughout the play, Hamlet frequently makes comments referring to every human body’s eventual decay, noting that Polonius will be eaten by worms, that even kings are eaten by worms, and that dust from the decayed body of Alexander the Great might be used to stop a hole in a beer

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To continue, the King’s inability to sympathize with Hamlet’s situation later in the scene brings about the stark contrast between Claudius and Hamlet’s principles regarding “the death of fathers”(Shakespeare Scene 2). For example, when asked about his grief, Hamlet dramatically and full-heartedly exclaims how anguish has truly enveloped him. On the contrary, Claudius replies to Hamlet in a long, nonchalant lecture about how Hamlet’s “father lost a father; That father lost, lost his”(Shakespeare Scene 2) and more. This dynamic shows both the King’s dearth of sympathy for Hamlet’s father’s death, as well as the complex difference between Claudius and Hamlet’s contradicting point of view on the same subject. The substantial shift from Hamlet’s fleeting, overwhelming speech, to the monologue Claudius gives to express his ideology, plays a significant role in highlighting the complexity of their dynamic.

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Through the events of nefarious actions and deaths in Hamlet, Shakespeare argues how greedy human nature can lead to the tragedy of betrayals. To begin, in Act 1 of Hamlet, the audience is introduced to a ghost that reveals that

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In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, many themes are explored throughout the play. Themes such as deception, madness, death, and revenge were all part of the play. Shakespeare's plays often deal with the issue of death, which is usually expressed in a very dramatic manner and generally includes the death of the main character. Shakespeare conveys the idea of life as a never-ending cycle of death and retribution throughout the entire play. Shakespeare introduces the concept of death with the passing of King Hamlet, which leads Hamlet to seek vengeance through his numerous soliloquies that examine death from a variety of perspectives and ultimately result in a dramatic conclusion.

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This quote reveals how all these things have affected Hamlet psychologically and emotionally. The death of King Hamlet has led the play toward more death themes, making this the most tragedy

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Hamlet's Attitude Towards Death It’s evident that Hamlet’s attitude towards death, as well as his reasons for avoiding his own, changes throughout the play. At first, Hamlet mourns for his late father who had mysteriously died, however, his mother moves on as if it were nothing to her, and quickly marries Claudius, Hamlet’s uncle. Hamlet is of course disturbed by the marriage and by how nonchalant everyone is of the King’s death to where he believes that life is meaningless for him, leading him to contemplate suicide later on. Changes later progress for his thoughts on suicide, more importantly his own reasons to avoid doing so to the point where Hamlet doesn’t kill himself by the end of the play.

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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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Despite all of this they still ended up reduced to dust just like Yorick. Thanks to this epiphany Hamlet was finally rid of his fear of death and also made him realize the pointlessness of life. Even though death was still shrouded in mystery for him, he at least did not fear it anymore as he realized that it is inevitable and that every man has to face it. This experience, which was closely followed by fighting on top of a corpse, made him undersand that no matter what a man accomplishes in his life, death would ultimately be victorious. There is no man more powerful than

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1156 Words | 5 Pages

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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847 Words | 4 Pages

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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The play starts with the death of Hamlet’s father and throughout the story, Hamlet thinks about killing those who murdered his father. Through Shakespeare’s words, “To be, or not to be,” it is clear that death is inevitable to the characters in the play (Shakespeare). We see the characters dying and being buried, for instance, Ophelia and Polonius. Moreover, the theme of death is present in the play when Hamlet plans the death of Guildenstern and Rosencrantz. Therefore, the theme of death is apparent in Hamlet from the beginning of the play to the final

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