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What Role Does Religion Play In Hamlet

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The significance of religion in Hamlet influences characters motives and decisions. There is a range of different types of literary theories investigates the role of religion from the characters in Hamlet and their actions. William Shakespeare allows religion to come between decisions in order for the reader to understand the characters motives. In the time of Hamlet, religion plays a crucial role. According Alsaif Omar, Hamlet contemplates the possibility of suicide in his soliloquy “ To be or not to be.” It shows that Hamlet wanted to commit suicide, he was trying to figure out whether or not he wanted to die. At the end of his speech, he stops himself from suicide, realizing committing suicide as a Christian is a huge sin. Making …show more content…

Horatio, Before my own God, I might not this believe, without the sensible and true avouch, of my eyes.” at this moment according to Alsaif Omar believes that at this moment in Hamlet there is a sense of belief of existence of the ghost. They wouldn’t have believed the ghost was true until they witnesses seeing it with their own eyes. Believing in the existence of the ghost goes against religion beliefs. However seeing the ghost confirmed it was real, which led them to think still in the religious idea that it's a ghost from hell and it’s stuck down there due to its sins. Even though the ghost was seen, strong religion beliefs managed to still affect how the situation was perceived. Because of this newly raised questions of …show more content…

Hamlet makes references of christian ideas in the early modern period. One of the religious questions is where the ghost of Hamlet’s father comes from. Hamlet doesn't know whether the ghost is a spirit of demon. “I am thy father's spirit, doomed for a certain term to walk the night and for the day confined to fast in fires, Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature are burnt and purged away.” This shows that Hamlet's father is stuck in a religious ideal. Heaven for the good, Hell for the sinful, purgatory for those with unfinished business. He knows purification achieves holiness to enter Heaven, but the ghost request contradicts his religion., According to Richard Baxter, the ghost appears to not come from Heaven or Hell but from purgatory saying “I am your father’s spirit doomed from a certain term to walk the night and for the day confined to fast in fires. Purgatory was a place where sins could be atoned after death. However According to Richard Baxter, Hamlet’s ideas of heaven are flawed and his refusal to murder Claudius during prayer because that would send Claudius soul to heaven. Having a better understanding of why Hamlet didn’t murder Claudius right then in there, grew an even bigger understanding of God and religion in Hamlet Shakespeare to the reader. Hamlet would of killed Claudius but religion played a leading role which impacted him from doing that. Hamlet knows if he murdered

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The ghost shares with Hamlet that it is indeed the ghost of his father

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In the beginning of the play ‘Hamlet’, the lead character Hamlet is approached by a ghost; something that people in the Elizabethan Era believed, due to underdeveloped scientific understanding, to be in the realm of reality. (“British Library” par. 3) The ghost in the play claims to be Hamlet's father and informs Hamlet of a great injustice and instructs him to take revenge. (Hamlet 1.5.45)

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He even acknowledges that “one may smile...and be a villain” but he does not even begin to consider that the statement could apply to the ghost before him (1.5, 109). In fact, he simply uses what the ghost has told him in order to strengthen his belief in the villainy of his uncle. It doesn’t occur to Hamlet, despite his friends’ various warnings, that the ghost could potentially not be his father. It doesn’t matter to him that, once alone with it, the ghost could “assume some other horrible form,/which might deprive [his] sovereignty of reason” (1.4, 72-3). Hamlet wants to see his father and so he sees him.

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And [as] for my soul—what can it do to that… It waves me forth again. I’ll follow it.” (I.iv.67-71). The fact that Hamlet decided to follow the ghost proves that he is willing

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Act 1 Scene 5 Line 14-48: Ghost Hamlet tells Hamlet the cause of his death Hamlet anxiously asks the ghost to reveal the truth as the sunrise starts to emerge from the darkness. I am the spirit of your father. Unfortunately, I am only allowed to make an appearance at night. And during the daytime, I have to suffer in hell until all the sins I have committed are burnt away. But, I am forbid to tell you the secrets of hells.

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During Shakespearean times, a ghost had only appeared when the soul had unfinished business on earth or to warn individuals about something. This meant that something of grave importance was about to unfold. This was an ominous sign that the order of the Elizabeth universe had been altered. When Hamlet was confronted with the ghost, he had immediately shown courage by not being frightened by the ghost. He describes that he was “as hardy as the Newman’s ghost,” (I.V.83) when it came to facing his father’s disturbed ghost.

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Throughout the play Hamlet most of the conflict comes from Hamlet's internal struggle of deciding whether he should trust the words and appearance of the ghost of his father. Just like a student trying to finish an essay, his procrastination has made him more eager to carry out the act but that dire obligation he so badly wants to fulfill can't be done without any sound proof that he strives to find. This comes to show Hamlet's inability to trust the Ghost because he didn't believe that the existence of the ghost of his father would be possible, he believed that the apparition might be a devil trying to lure him in to committing an unjustified act, and he needed to rely on Claudius’s reaction to the play to validate his trust with the Ghost. At the start of the play, Hamlet is awestruck and dubious about the Ghost because during his first meeting with the apparition, he was so stunned of the supernatural sighting that he felt skeptical if it was even possible for such an episode to happen.

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When Hamlet first sees the Ghost, he has pity for the ‘poor ghost’, saying ‘rest, rest, perturbed spirit’. He states that he will ‘go pray’ after seeing the ghost, although he is in a vengeful, rather than a prayerful mood. This may indicate that Hamlet believes that it is by taking revenge on Claudius that he can alleviate his father’s suffering in purgatory. After promising his father's ghost that he will gain revenge on Claudius for the "foul and most unnatural murder" (Shakespeare I. v. 31), Hamlet lets opportunities to murder Claudius pass by, waiting for a time when all will realize he is right in the act so that Claudius will die in shame. Hamlet decides that if he were to kill Claudius during prayer, Claudius would be sent to heaven, which would not be the proper revenge

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He is depressed and suicidal as indicated in his infamous quote, “To be, or not to be: that is the question.” (3.1.57). However, while many may choose to carry on after the death of a loved one, Hamlet chose to hold on to his sorrow and pretended to be mad so he can know the truth behind his father’s death. Hamlet’s tragic life is not the cause for his madness. Hamlet drives himself to the brink of insanity

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As the 16th century transitioned into the 17th century, people’s way of thinking changed. There was a divide between Protestantism and Catholicism and people began to turn away from a religious way of thinking. Hamlet shows this change in its ambiguity and constant uncertainty. For example, there were three ways of thinking about ghosts at the time Hamlet was written, the Catholic way, the Protestant way, and the skeptical way. However, all three ways of thinking are shown in the play, making the audience wonder what the play was being based on religiously.

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Instead, he called him as ‘the illusion of father’, since he continually doubted the ghost’s reliability and its trustworthiness. Hamlet’s attitude to this incident is related to the topic we want to say to the audience. Please keep he’s attitude in mind throughout the presentation. The famous ancient Greek philosopher Plato once said, “Everything that exists in this world, is a duplicate of the original.” And this intrigued me very much.

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First, King Hamlet’s ghost affects action when he first appears in the play. When he first appears, he doesn’t even speak. When he finally does speak, he only talks to his son, Prince Hamlet. The ghost says, “I am thy father’s spirit… Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder” (1.5.9,25 Hamlet).

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The most common answer to the question has always been that the ghost is the spirit of the dead king Hamlet, returning to comfort his grieving young son left inconsolable by his loss and to provide answers for

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By declaring that his own brother had murdered him, the Ghost indirectly shows Hamlet the dishonesty of the world. Thus, this makes Hamlet wary of those around him even his own friends such as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Additionally, this discovery of his father’s murder turns Hamlet into an outcast, for he fails to trust others. Because he acts as an outcast, many people perceive him as a madman. These ideals of life introduced to Hamlet by the Ghost influence the actions and thoughts of Hamlet throughout the

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Since Hamlet is not able to make up his own decisions he must take the orders from a ghost he meets which is the spirit of his father. Hamlet also knows he cannot make his decisions

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