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How Does Shakespeare Present Death In Hamlet

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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. Shakespeare displays death through the suicide of Ophelia, Hamlet’s thoughts and eventual suicide, and the murder of King Hamlet and Polonius. He also shows death by the whole act with the fencing match with Laertes. Laertes ends up killing himself from his ideas, and Gertrude also kills herself by trying to protect her son by drinking and knowing the poison. This reveals to us the theme of death when Gertrude announces Ophelia was drowned she says "So full of artless …show more content…

Ophelia then drowns herself in the pond nearby announced by Gertrude. “One woe doth tread upon another’s heel, So fast they follow: your sister’s drown’d, Laertes,” (IIII. 7). Gertrude interrupts Laertes and Claudius when they are trying to figure out how they are going to try to kill Hamlet. They plan on doing a sword fight but Laertes’ sword will be poisoned and sharpened. “I will do't: And, for that purpose, I'll anoint my sword,” (IIII.7). They also have an alternative plan if the sword doesn’t work, they are going to get him tired enough that he will want water and then give him poison to drink. After Laertes hears his sister has died; he gets even more mad at Hamlet and wants to kill him even more. So they go through with the sword

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Even his mourning clothes can not express the level of grief that Hamlet is experiencing after the loss of his father. After Ophelia drowns in a river, both Hamlet and Laertes are distraught. Hamlet always loved Ophelia and Laertes was still shocked by his father’s death.

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Death seems to be the biggest mystery in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. From the start of the play with the Ghost of Hamlets father appearing to avenge his death, to Hamlet’s most popular “To be or Not to be” soliloquy, and to the plays bloody conclusion; the uncertainty of death seems to always be on our protagonist mind. Death has become a recurring theme throughout this whole play. His thoughts of death range from death in a spiritual matter, the truth and uncertainty in what death may bring, and the question of his own death.

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Hamlet is a powerful story of love, life, revenge, and death. The themes within the play are written to live on for eternity. It is difficult to fully and accurately represent a play as great as this one. The movie that we watched in class did not wholly represent the wonders and the magnitude of the themes within Shakespeare’s work.

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In the exposition, Laertes is introduced as the brother to the beautiful Ophelia, the girl to whom Hamlet secretly loves. As a “loving” friend and relative, they both share a common bond in wanting to care for Ophelia, but the future shows differently than what they intended. When Ophelia died towards the end, that common bond they shared for her grew stronger and added to the fire that ultimately drew them to go against one another. Hamlet became rejectful of the news and anger soon took over. When confronted by Laertes and challenged by his feeling for

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Death is one of the most prominent themes in Hamlet, appearing in different forms. Shakespeare displays death through the suicide of Ophelia, Hamlet’s own thoughts and eventual suicide, and the murder of King Hamlet and Polonius. Hamlet displays suicidal tendencies throughout the play through his soliloquies. The first time that Hamlet contemplates committing suicide is when Gertrude and Claudius tell him that he has to stay in Denmark in Act one. “Oh, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew, or that the Everlasting had not fixed his canon ‘gainst self-slaughter!

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873 Words | 4 Pages

In the play Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, the main protagonist, Prince Hamlet, is tangled with the theme of death. During the play, he presents how his life is surrounded with death after his father, King Hamlet, dies. Death theme is the most occurring theme Shakespeare writes about in his plays, which most of his plays have a very dramatic death ending and involve the death of the main protagonist. Throughout the play, Shakespeare presents the idea of life, which is the never ending cycle of revenge and death. Shakespeare starts the death theme with the death of King Hamlet, which stimulates Hamlet to seek for revenge with his various soliloquies considering death from various points of view and certainly leads to a dramatic ending.

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By doing this she leaves Laertes all alone in the world. When Hamlet returns from England to hear this news he is petrified. He becomes angry with Laertes for grieving too much and in return Laertes is angry at Hamlet because he thinks this is all his fault. The two gramble at each other. This leading to the last act of cruelty.

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840 Words | 4 Pages

The death of his father really weighs Hamlet and it make Hamlet into a spiral of depression in which lead him to contemplate suicide. Basically, death and decay are two words which give an imagery about something that is rotten, become not existing anymore, and smelly. The theme suicides in this play, is symbolize by death and decay in its storyline and most of the action

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But we can see after he finds out about the truth, he is forced to act because of his morality beliefs. The battle in Hamlet’s tragedy occurs in a dynamic society that is created by opposing forces that contradict with each other and Hamlet is a philosophical prince who blames the court for impunity, injustice, and murder; and all of these problems prevents him from being a part of court’s social life and he becomes depressed. Hamlet’s deep depression effects on his behaviors until he even doesn’t act like prince and becomes mad. His madness effect on his judgment and makes him to become obsessed with the death; even he sees death as the only way to take revenge. We can see that Hamlet explores death in every facet of the play from many different angles and how he develops his definition of death from the materially to morality perspective.

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It is not only his presence, but also his words that suggest the idea of death, as the Ghost gives the account of his murder - ‘Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole with juice of cursed hebenon in a vial, and in the porches of my ears did pour the leperous distilment, whose effect holds such an enmity with blood of man that swift as quicksilver it courses through the natural gates and alleys of the body, and with a sudden vigour it doth posset and curd, like eager droppings into milk, the thin and wholesome blood. So did it mine, and a most instant tetter bark’d about, most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust all my smooth body.’ Not only does Hamlet have to plan his revenge, but he must also deal with his ideas about death. Old Hamlet’s murder begins the theme of death in “Hamlet”. Hamlet’s vow to avenge his father’s murder and consequent plot to kill Claudius ultimately leads to the deaths of his future father-in-law Polonius, his bride to be Ophelia, his mother Queen Gertrude, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, Claudius, Laertes and Hamlet

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Shakespeare presents death as an inevitable act of life, noting that all that is living must eventually come to an end. Due to “Hamlet” being a Shakespearean tragedy, the theme of death recurs throughout the play. Additionally, Shakespeare can be seen as using revenge as the main motive of a character’s murder, which makes “Hamlet” a revenge tragedy. The tragic nature means that by the end of the play, majority of the characters would have died. In this case, many of the characters have died due to murder or suicide.

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When Hamlet encounters his Father death, he becomes obsessed with death itself. He begins to wonder if suicide is the answer to end his suffering. In the play, hamlet says “O, that this too sullied flesh would melt, Thaw and resolve itself into a dew”(I.ii.133-138).

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In the play Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, Hamlet is tangled with the theme of death. During the play, he presents how his life is surrounded with death after the death of his father. Death theme is the most occuring theme Shakespeare writes about in his plays, which most plays have a very dramatic death theme and most of time involve the death of the main protagonist. Throughout the play, Shakespeare presents the idea of life, which is the never ending cycle of death and revenge. Shakespeare starts the theme of death with the death of King Hamlet, which stimulates Hamlet to seek for revenge with his various soliloquies considering death from various points of view and certainly leads to a dramatic ending.

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However, continuing with Hamlet’s incessant need for vengeance, the actions and drastic measures he takes in order to achieve such certainty are both incredibly genius and rightfully insane. Despite his methods and lack of will to act until he is absolutely positive with his facts, Hamlet proves that his way is the best way. Although Hamlet had numerous opportunities to act upon his revenge, he waited until he was absolutely sure of his suspicions, even when he could have easily retributed in his own controlled environment. Unlike many other named characters, Hamlet did not let outside sources sway his perception and perspective on the situation. For example, Laertes had insisted that nothing could be said or done in order for him to change his mind on acting upon his own vengeance, yet Claudius’ words had done just that, and Laertes ended up paying the price when he was killed upon his own poisoned sword.

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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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