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The themes of hamlet
Hamlet talking about suicide
The themes of hamlet
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More handpicked essays just for you.
The themes of hamlet
Hamlet talking about suicide
The themes of hamlet
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
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.
The uncle that took his crown and now his father’s ghost who tells him Claudius murder his father. Will he get avenge for his father’s death? So now Hamlet begins to question his life is it worth the living “To be, or not to be?
In this scene, Hamlet expresses his total dissatisfaction with the life he lives. The world Hamlet lives in is full of pain and suffering, something he wishes he could simply put an end to. He looks to suicide as a potential, promising option. He states, “O, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew.” However, the life Hamlet lives is the life of Christianity.
In this soliloquy, Hamlet expresses both his fear of death and longing for it. The part I feel a connection to is the fear. Fear of death and what comes after is something that has always been with me, ever since I was a kid. The concept of life after death and what happens to us when we die is a thing I can not wrap my mind around. Are we “travelers” like Hamlet says or are we just going to fade into nothingness?
To Fear, or Not to Fear, Death “To be, or not to be, that is the question” (Shakespeare 53). This is one of Shakespeare’s most famous lines, where Hamlet questions whether he should live or die—to kill himself or not. Yet, Hamlet answers this question himself: he cannot commit suicide because of “the dread of something after death” (Shakespeare 53). According to many religions, killing oneself is a sin, a one-way ticket to a torturous, fiery afterlife. Using this belief, Hamlet appears to be concerned about the fear of death, a common matter that people are anxious about.
Hamlet is a complex and nuanced character who struggles with existential questions and grapples with the nature of humanity. This is evident in the famous soliloquy "To be or not to be" (Act 3, Scene 1), in which Hamlet meditates on the pain and suffering of life and the possibility of
The pain that he is experiencing due to his father’s death and his mother’s dalliances can only be resisted by his faith and his belief in better and worse. Hamlet fears a damnation to Hell, and hopes for an easy passage to heaven, yet in a situation that many find hopeless, it is through his faith in God that Hamlet is able to resist the temptations of death. Throughout the play, Shakespeare emphasizes this intense faith that Hamlet possess and how it is a guiding force in many of his choices. Yet lack of faith can be even more telling. “My words fly up, my thoughts remain below;/ Words without thoughts never to heaven go” (Shakespeare,
Hamlet's Attitude Towards Death It’s evident that Hamlet’s attitude towards death, as well as his reasons for avoiding his own, changes throughout the play. At first, Hamlet mourns for his late father who had mysteriously died, however, his mother moves on as if it were nothing to her, and quickly marries Claudius, Hamlet’s uncle. Hamlet is of course disturbed by the marriage and by how nonchalant everyone is of the King’s death to where he believes that life is meaningless for him, leading him to contemplate suicide later on. Changes later progress for his thoughts on suicide, more importantly his own reasons to avoid doing so to the point where Hamlet doesn’t kill himself by the end of the play.
In the “To be or not to be” soliloquy, Hamlet says, “To die, to sleep/ No more—and by a sleep to say we end/ The heartache and the thousand natural shocks/ That flesh/ is heir to—’tis a consummation/ Devoutly to be wished!”(3.1 61-64) Proving that he is so distraught about taking action against his uncle that he believes that death would be an easier alterative to losing his purity and innocence. He ultimately decides that suicide is not the answer, “With this regard their currents turn awry/ And lose the name of action,” (3.1 88-89) because he cannot take the uncertainty of the afterlife. This entire soliloquy also highlights Hamlets delayed action to his problems.
Yet despite his suffering, Hamlet ultimately decides against taking his own life, as it would go against his own religious beliefs and thus damn him to spend an afterlife in hell. This shows that Hamlet is still quite capable of thinking things through thoroughly and rationally, even in such emotionally stressful situations. Something an unbalanced mind would be quite incapable of
The soliloquy “to be or not to be “asked by Hamlet questions the meaning of life and acts as a metaphor that suicide would be acceptable to escape from his life. Furthermore, this idea is supported by the repetition of “to die, to sleep; to sleep perchance to dream” is used to present that being dead is comparable to a being asleep and that death is a way to abandon reality. The thought of suicide is primarily caused by his search for vengeance and it ultimately leads to his demise. The imagery of “bear the whips and scorns of times” reveals that the more time that passes the more pain and grief he faces and implies that revenge acts as a double-edged sword as the closer he gets to his revenge the more pain he inflicts upon himself. The statement that revenge can lead to one’s madness is also represented by the character
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.
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.
In his soliloquy, he is asking himself whether it is better to live or to die, which he is considering to commit suicide. Also, in the soliloquy, Hamlet states that “Who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscovered country from whose bourn No traveler returns, puzzles the will And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of?” (3.1.84-90). He explains that no one would like to live in an exhausting life, unless they don’t know what is going to happen after they die because they are afraid of what their after life is going to be. Both these quotes prove that the death symbol is always surrounded by Hamlet and he has a hard time to choose between life and
Suicide is a reoccuring theme in Hamlet. Since this is a theme that affects all characters to a certain degree, it is interesting to see how the idea of suicide is treated both morally, religiously and aesthetically. This essay will mostly be based on Hamlet´s own soliloquies, considering their relevance to the theme, but Queen Gertrude´s treatment of Ophelia´s death is also worth a mention. The story of Hamlet takes place in medieval Denmark, but a precise date is not mentioned.