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What Is Hamlet's Downfall

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An honorable king was sleeping in the garden, a man driven for the crown and kills his own brother, A wife to the old king and a wife to the new king, and the son who is caught up in the middle of it all. These are all characters in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Hamlet encounters his deceased father’s ghost, who reveals to Hamlet how he really died...murder. Hamlet embarks on a mission to avenge his father’s death. He must kill the new king. Hamlet is provided with many opportunities to avenge his death, but never takes one up, because he let his conscience get in the way of taking action. In Hamlet, Hamlet illustrates his traits as tragic flaws which eventually leads to his downfall because he thinks and stalls too much which ends up with everyone dying in the end. …show more content…

Because since everything is overthought it affects his relationships with the other characters. Due to his actions the relationship between him and his mother is ruined since he doesn’t trust her because of Claudius. “Now might I do it pat, now he is praying and now I’ll do it and so he goes to heaven.” Hamlet expresses that if he kills him now while he is confessing and apologizing for all of his wrong doings that Claudius could have a chance to go to heaven. The ghost motivated Hamlet the most in the story, because he told Hamlet how his brother killed him and how he needed to get revenge. When Hamlet heard what happened that’s when he started to get really motivated and hungry for revenge. “To be or not to be…” Hamlet’s famous to be or not to be is a prime example of why Hamlet thinks too much into things. He compares whether or not it is better to live or commit suicide. He proposes that maybe it is better to die so that he doesn’t have to kill Claudius. Hamlet’s overthinking really ends the play because once everything happens and he kills the king they all

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Hamlet, also, could not get over the death of his father. He found out when his father’s ghost came back that his brother, and Hamlet’s uncle, murdered him. He then was willing to do anything possible to get revenge on Claudius, his uncle. Both of

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Hamlet was given the prime opportunity to kill Claudius when he found him on his knees begging for forgiveness. Hamlet negated not to kill him right then and there because he wanted Claudius to go to hell, not heaven. Hamlet’s lack of sanity, or his tragic flaw, in the play is definitely what caused his inability to

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The story of Hamlet by William Shakespeare is a story of betrayal, revenge, and intrigue. Hamlet, the title character discovers that his uncle killed his father and married his mother effectively stealing the throne. Hamlet decides he must kill his uncle Claudius as revenge for what he had done. However, as the new king, Hamlet isn't sure how to get to him, so he decides to fake madness, but his plan backfires as Claudius doesn't trust him and makes sure he is always watched. In his fumbled plan for revenge, Hamlet accidentally kills Polonius, forces Polonius's son Laertes to seek revenge against him, and drives Ophelia crazy causing her to kill herself.

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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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The main character of William Shakespeare’s tragedy is actually a confused person that’s stuck between two choices. Some may argue that he feels guilty for his father’s death and so it’s his duty to avenge it. While others may disagree and conclude that he is just a maniac who is both violent and dangerous. Hamlet passes through the lane of hesitancy, where he hesitates to kill King Claudius. As a matter of fact, the main conflict of Hamlet is that he feels both the need to solve the crime and punish the responsible.

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Like many things, Hamlet is intelligent and honorable, but his indecisiveness is the cause of his tragic downfall. In the play Hamlet, William Shakespeare portrays that Hamlet is very incapable of finishing the task at hand. Throughout the drama Hamlet faces many trials and tribulations due to his late father Hamlet, who was murderously killed by Claudius. His inability to kill Claudius and himself is one grand flaw of an epic hero. After King Hamlets passing, Hamlet entered an unknown state of mind that not only feared others for his wellbeing, but also feared himself.

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Hamlet then accidentally kills Polonius the king's right hand man by accident thinking it was the king himself. When he sees that who he just killed wasn't in fact Claudius he figured he was just doing

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The character of Hamlet is expressed as a protagonist. His irritated attitude towards Claudius in scene 2 of act 1 leaves the audience with a clear first impression of his nature. He is deceitful of the king, his uncle Claudius who is now the ruler of Denmark after his brothers “death”, and disgusted of his mother marrying his uncle. Hamlet is an example of someone who has compromised his happiness, in order to avenge his father’s murder.

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In the play Hamlet, we find that Hamlet meets with his father’s ghost, and about his father murder by the hands of blood related brother, Hamlet takes a decision, to revenge and restore the glory back

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Hamlet's overthinking and inaction led to several unnecessary murders. Hamlet knew that Claudius is guilty, yet he still wants to make sure, therefore Hamlet made a play that played out the exact way that Claudius had killed King Hamlet. Hamlet had done this in order to watch how Claudius reacts to make sure that Claudius is the one who murdered his father, “I’ll observe his looks, if he do blench, I know my course” (Ham.2.2.583-585) “Now might I do it pat, now’a is a-praying. And now I’ll do’t” ( Ham.

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In the end Hamlet steps up to plate, killing Claudius and putting the fate of Denmark in good

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His ghost influences the actions of Hamlet in various ways throughout the story. The ghost influences the theme of revenge by telling Hamlet to avenge his death and go after his uncle, alters the development of characters, namely Hamlet, by changing who he is as a person. The ghost of King Hamlet is the reason for the events of the play even occurring. He influences the theme of the play by planting the seeds in Hamlet’s mind to make him want to get revenge on his uncle in the first place. Lastly, the ghost influences character development because what he tells Prince Hamlet and, in a roundabout way, makes him do, shapes Young Hamlet into a different person than he was previously.

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He sought to avenge the death of his father, thus giving his father justice. However, Hamlet’s quest for vengeance did not allow him to remain a righteous character, but instead turned him into a villain. Claudius who is seen as the villain is only responsible for the death of one person, while Hamlet is responsible for numerous. He kills three himself, causes Ophelia to commit suicide, arranges the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, forces Claudius to drink poison even though he is already dying from a poisoned sword wound. So while Hamlet is justified in wanting to extract revenge for the death of his father he was not justified in the amount of deaths that he caused either directly or indirectly.

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Instead of taking action and killing claudius, he questions whether the ghost was actually his father asking to revenge his death or the devil resembling his father to try to tempt him into murder. In No Fear Shakespeare from Sparknotes, Hamlet talks about his doubts to believe the ghost is actually his father or not by saying “May be the devil, and the devil hath power T’ assume a pleasing shape. Yea, and perhaps Out of my weakness and melancholy, As he is very potent with such spirits, Abuses me to damn me (Act 2 Scene 2 Page 24). This shows how Hamlet was indecisive and how the ghost of his father was one of the major reasons why he was indecisive.

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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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