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Hamlet Suicide Analysis

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In the tragedy Hamlet, written by Shakespeare, Ophelia is the daughter of Polonius and sister of Laertes. She is broken to the point of killing herself. Suicide is a very important motif, and has various roles throughout the play’s plot.
Suicide is first mentioned in act one scene two of Hamlet. Here, it serves the role of giving the reader insight into Hamlet as a character. An important trait of this play is that the protagonist’s thought are eloquently portrayed, presenting the reader with multiple perspectives on topics and rhetorical questions proving the difficulty of said topics. In his first soliloquy, this is made evident when Hamlet says, “O that this too too solid flesh would melt, / Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew! / Or that …show more content…

The tragedy of the entire last scene is the result of the royal family’s own corruption. Because of the clan’s death is caused by themselves, this play can be viewed as a single, paramount suicide of Denmark’s royalty. Examples of this include Gertrude’s adultery, Claudius’s hunger for power, and Polonius’s overbearingness. Gertrude contributes to the undoing of the clan by marrying Claudius, leading to the alienation of her son. In Hamlet’s first soliloquy, the lines, “...within a month- / Let me not think on’t! Frailty, thy name is woman!..” (I.II.151-152) present the effect that Gertrude’s remarriage has on Hamlet, leading to him withdrawing himself and plotting for the revenge of his father. The man she marries is also a factor in the family’s ruin. Claudius begins the events of the play by poisoning his brother and assuming the crown, taking Gertrude as his wife. In the end, it is he who encourages Laertes to kill Hamlet due to the fact that Claudius perceives Hamlet as a threat to his own reign, a plan which ended in disaster. Polonius also played a hand in the collapse of the clan by asserting so much dominance over Ophelia that she was driven mad when he died. Ophelia’s resulting suicide caused Laertes to post his blame on Hamlet, allowing him to be Claudius’s hand in killing

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