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Hamlet: The Dual Character In Shakespeare's Hamlet

880 Words4 Pages
Hamlet (1603) has been Shakespeare’s most important play throughout history, and it still is the most produced play in the world nowadays. As a matter of facts, it is estimated that Hamlet is being performed somewhere every single minute, every day (Gedgerow). But why is Hamlet so famous? Of course the dialogues, the drama and the story are impecable, but Hamlet’s stronger weapon is, not in vain, its main character: Hamlet. He is a very peculiar character, that thinks a lot, and talks a lot; he is constantly debating between life and death, earth and heaven and he is contantly acting; among other things, Hamlet is an extremely dual character. The duality of being is what lead him to be constantly in a contrast between his interior and exterior, but the fact that he is the only one that can be in between those opposites, makes Hamlet special from other characters. Hamlet’s interior is a mirror of his exterior, and this dual nature makes him be in a threshold between the two. Hamlet is constantly debating and philosophizing between life and death, but after all of Hamlet’s soliloquys and thoughts, Hamlet’s life (interior) becomes similar to death (exterior). The King’s death was the cause for many following actions that killed a part in the interior of Hamlet, and though he is alive, he feels as if he was dead inside. At the end of the play, for example, he claims he is dead because his life doesn’t have any meaning anymore: “But let it be. Horatio, I am dead;/ Thou livest;
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