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Hamlet Nihilism In Hamlet

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The belief in nothing, the rejection of all values, moral principles and religions. The philosophy that all values are baseless and believing that life is meaningless, this is Nihilism. In Hamlet, there are three different kinds of nihilism that are shown; passive, active and ubermensch. Passive nihilism is when there is belief that there is no going further, its the end. Passive nihilism can be distinguished by rejection, death/suicide, and defeat. Active nihilism is the beginning or starting point, the creation of whole new values. Someone who is presenting active nihilism would be wanting to get rid of anything meaningless. Lastly, ubermensch is the next step in human evolution, giving himself/herself value and morality. All three of these …show more content…

Nihilism is shown through Hamlet’s state of mind during the play through his feelings, actions and emotions. Hamlet uses active nihilism when Hamlet finds out that Claudius, his father's brother, murders King Hamlet. Hamlet then has his soliloquy during that period of sorrow. After that, Hamlet then wanted to get revenge on Claudius for murdering his father. The feeling of getting revenge starts the signs of active nihilism in Hamlet. Hamlet goes through passive nihilistic views in most of the play and shows this through his lack of motivation to live. Hamlet says, “How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world,” (I,2). Hamlet talks on how that everything in this world is useless. This suggests that he really does not have a reason to live. Hamlet shows random signs of powerful emotions and those result in nihilistic traits. An example of this is Hamlet says "Should have fatted all the region kites With this slave's offal: bloody, bawdy villain! Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain," (I,2). This quote shows how Hamlet battles his inner-self and his own ideas. Hamlet thinks about a choice of whether he should give up as a passive nihilist would, or to go his own way and choices with active nihilism. These Nihilistic views are apparent and strong throughout

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