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Hamlet Play Analysis

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The play within a play in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” Act III, Scene II is a literary device used to give a twist to the plot, and create suspense. However, in a closer examination it is also an early example of a metaplay employed by Shakespeare in order to engage the audience with more complex notions, such as the idea of reality and deception. Hamlet is determined to avenge for the death of his father and fulfill the request of his father’s Ghost. But uncertainty and indecision prevent Hamlet from acting spontaneously. In order to proceed to his mission, to take revenge, he has to find solid proof of Claudius’s guilt. Therefore, Hamlet attempts to “catch the conscience of the king” (II.ii.597) by using a play. The play-within-a-play, …show more content…

As Carol Replogle claims, “the device of a play within a play succeeds in converting actors of the main action into spectators, bound for the moment with the real audience. These actors thus acquire a kind of new actuality, as together with the audience, they inspect a performance which is equally remote from both” (153). Undoubtedly, the double perspectives imply that truth is hidden and must be found. Thus, the audience is provided with the perception of what reality is and what acting is. The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer in The World as Will and Representation illuminates the presentation of reality’s hidden frames by art: "If the whole world as representation is only the visibility of the will, then art is the elucidation of this visibility, the camera obscura which shows the objects more purely, and enables us to survey and comprehend them better. It is the play within the play, the stage on the stage in Hamlet." …show more content…

In the mousetrap it is used to reveal Claudius’ guilt and allow Hamlet to proceed to his mission of vengeance. The Elsinore Castle on the other hand could be considered as “the kingdom of deception”. Everyone is deceiving everyone else and everyone is being deceived. As I have mentioned earlier, Elsinore represents the modern world, where everyone is corrupted, everyone is lying. This world has nothing to do with the previous era, the epic world of Hamlet’s father, when Kings would resolve their differences in a straightforward, manly way. The modern world is illustrated as a corrupted one, as everyone pretends, acts and tries to deceive everyone else. This world is akin to our

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Although Hamlet is plotting to murder a king which is the highest form of treason any person could commit in his time, is made to seem like an honorable and justified action. Through the ghost of his father demanding that Hamlet avenge his untimely death by the hand of his brother, the audience disposes of this idea that plotting against and killing a king is treason. The audience understands Hamlets rage and desire for revenge and is encourages it although Claudius is the new king of Denmark and father to Hamlet. This betrayal Hamlet commits against his former uncle now his adoptive father would disgust the audience had it not been that Claudius was guilty of murdering Hamlets father and plotting to murder Hamlet. By having this double crossing it establishes how not even the bonds of family can quench the thirst for power and

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After learning this, Hamlet’s sole motivation is to avenge his father’s death by revealing Claudius’ deception. Hamlet’s initial plan to expose Claudius is to have performers put on a play imitating the events of his father’s death. Hamlet says, I’ll have these players play something like the murder to my father before mine uncle. I’ll observe his looks; I’ll tent him to the quick. If ‘a do blench, I know my course…The play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King (Shakespeare

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Due to Shakespeare's thorough use of diction readers can thoroughly understand why one should not rush revenge. Hamlet comes up with an idea to have a play for King Claudius to watch, within the play it will illustrate a king being poisoned by a close relative. Hamlet will know that the Ghost is being truthful if King Claudius seems disturbed while watching the play. Hamlet says to the audience, “The play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king” (2.2.584).

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Hamlet Character deception is a common characteristic that has and will be a reflecting characteristic in literature for centuries. In many of William Shakespeare’s tragedies, deception, whether positive or negative, is being used to mislead, to protect characters, or to hide a crime or future crime. Analyzing why the characters are using deception against each other is very important to the reader’s understanding of the work as a whole. In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, He uses Hamlet’s deception of character and also the character’s use of deception towards Hamlet to carry out the overall theme of the tragedy. The theme that is represented, is that in able to get malicious revenge, you must be able to act as if you are someone different than your true self while in turn, being able to deal with others deceiving you.

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When the actors come to town Hamlet asks them to put on a special play that he has written, one that will reveal if the King is truly guilt. The play is reenacting the death of King Hamlet as the ghost describes it; as murder. His plan is to get a reaction from the King to assure the ghosts is telling the truth about King Hamlet’s death. When the actors get to the scene of the murder, King Claudius exits the theater. Hamlet now knows that the ghost was being truthful.

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As Eliot describes, “the ‘madness’ of Hamlet lay to Shakespeare’s hand; in the earlier play a simple ruse, and to the end, we may presume, understood as a ruse by the audience…” (Eliot 93). Although the play made it seem as though the purpose was to tell a tale of revenge, Eliot says that, “For Shakespeare, it is less than madness and more than feigned.” (Eliot 93) He furthers his argument by explaining that the characterization of Hamlet, from his nostalgic tones, to his philosophical deepness, does not imply that he he’s trying to scheme a revenge plan, but instead aims to express only his emotions. Throughout the play, it is noticeable that Hamlet has an intricate persona.

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Firstly, Hamlet is a play of a man by the name of Hamlet, whose father was murdered by Claudius, his uncle. Claudius murdered the king by pouring poison in his ear to claim the throne for himself. Hamlet is then told by a ghost to murder Claudius for revenge, and he struggles within himself for the length of play whether to do it or not. When Hamlet begins to hesitate it does more damage than good and causes a chain reaction of tragic events, and makes the readers question whether Hamlet is truly sane or not. Claudius’s corruptness begins to show when he uses his authority to order those around him to rid of Hamlet.

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In the final scene of Hamlet, Hamlet says “Being thus be-netted round with villainies, -- Ere I could make a prologue to my brains, they had begun the play” (Shakespeare 131). Hamlet ironically thinks to himself as a character in a play because he is so melodramatically self-conscious. By adding this sense of paradoxical exposure, Shakespeare shows his effort to foreground the fact that the audience is watching a play within the play. Since Hamlet is such a rich character, Shakespeare’s work shows how he has something within him goes beyond what a play is capable of representing.

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Shakespeare uses the indecisiveness of Hamlet to demonstrate that human life is about acting, not thinking. At the beginning of the play Hamlet encounters a ghost while out with his friends. The sight shocks him, but he decides to follow it. The ghost is his father, and they begin to have a full conversation.

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Deception is an action driven with the motive to employ one purpose which can be to mislead another individual in order to gain knowledge, to get revenge, or to reveal a plan unknown to the public eye and keeping it that way for the dutiful well-being of the Kingdom of Denmark. In the tragedy Hamlet by William Shakespeare, deception develops into the character trait that initiates the actions, heartbreak, and revenge driving this play. This attribute held by Hamlet is the leading cause of this same flaw development in Ophelia, King Claudius, and many others in an attempt to reinforce the theme. This theme is one of heroism, but the deceptive notion each action reveals challenges the perception the reader has on each of the main characters. In order to be able to fully analyze the part Hamlet’s deception plays in driving the plot and storyline of this tragedy, one must understand that a foil character juxtaposes each character to illuminate their shortcomings.

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842 Words | 4 Pages

Claudius had arranged an execution for Hamlet, to get rid of him permanently. Behind these acts of deception, we can see Claudius had wanted power, and would do anything to achieve it. This makes

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1313 Words | 6 Pages

Over the course of Hamlet, many of the main characters engage in role play as a mechanism to achieve their own interests. Prince Hamlet is one of these characters, and his act proves to be one of the most important aspects of the play. Throughout the play, role-play (especially Hamlet’s) significantly affects the plot, and ultimately strains the relationships between several characters. Hamlet is among one of the most important characters to engage in role play. In act one, scene 5, shortly after being told that Claudius killed his father, Hamlet tells Horatio and Marcellus that he plans to feign madness, and he says, “As I, perchance, hereafter shall think meet to put an antic disposition

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256 Words | 2 Pages

This also portray a different Hamlet from the one that set up a play to see if Claudius was guilty. Hamlets start to get unstable in his quest for revenge and this cause him to kill an innocent man and make an enemy of the son of the man he kill. Now Hamlet

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In this paper, the audience will understand how Hamlet’s moral ambiguity is significant to Shakespeare’s play as a whole. In the beginning of the

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What does this character love the most? If what the character loves changes, explain this as well. What Hamlet loves the most in Hamlet is Ophelia despite it constantly being questioned. He presents this on a few occasions; while talking to Ophelia, Hamlet tells her “I did love you” (III.i.125).

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