William Shakespeare Hamlet Research Paper

Hamlet is one of William Shakespeare’s most renowned plays, it is also one his darker plays. Written in 1601, Hamlet is the epitome of what is now known as a Revenge Tragedy. Time and time again we hear the word tragedy tagged on to most of Shakespeare’s more popular plays, however this isn’t the case always. For example, Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written by Shakespeare, but in no way does it compare to the events that take place in Hamlet. This is why modern interpreters have given it the name of Revenge Tragedy. Hamlet is basically a play that revolves around a prince and his family. The prince’s father is killed by his uncle, and then his uncle takes the throne. To add to the fact he also re-marries the prince’s mother. The prince later

Hamlet wants revenge on Claudius for murdering his father. Fortinbras wants revenge on Denmark in general because Hamlet Sr. killed his father. Laertes wants revenge on Hamlet because Hamlet kills Polonius and is part of the cause for Ophelia’s suicide. But the main focus of course, is on Hamlet’s revenge, and strongly so, as his lust for revenge causes him to lose control of his Id and blindly follow wherever the winding road known as his revenge takes him. His quest for revenge begins when he meets his father ghosts and the ghost says: “Murder most foul, as in the best it is,/But this most foul, strange and unnatural.” (Hamlet 1.5.27). At this point, Hamlet was a very protected prince, he hadn’t experienced much of the outside world. However after realising what caused him, what at this point was, the saddest moment in his life, he was filled with rage. However, the way he goes about his revenge is what inevitably causes his downfall. He refuses to make this act of tyranny known to the public; he decides that he must do this on his own, for a sense of his own pride, and his father’s pride. This is Hamlet being moved by his Id, his Id wants him to blindly follow this one goal that has appeared in his life, and this is because it was likely what was considered a “manly” act during the time. Some of the wrong doings he does on his path to revenge is

He had a beautiful girlfriend in Ophelia. A wonderful woman who was in turn, deeply in love with him, yet, after one hearing one part of the truth that caused his father’s death, he drops everything just to blindly follow… a ghost. Hamlet could have accepted Claudius as the father who has now passed. Claudius originally, came to Hamlet in hopes of making him forget everything about his father so that he can continue to live a happy life. But Hamlet as stubborn as he is, pushes him away. However, this may have been because of Gertrude. Hamlet Sr. likely picked Gertrude to be his wife because she resembled his mother, this is because many men in the medieval times had Oedipal Complexes. Now for Claudius, Hamlet Sr’s brother to also like Gertrude is not far of the equation… and neither is Hamlet liking Gertrude, because well, she is his mother. This is also likely the reason for him dating Ophelia, as Gertrude says that she wishes Ophelia to have wed Hamlet. “Sweets to the sweet: farewell!/I hop’d thou shouldst have been my Hamlet’s wife,/I thought they bride-bed to have deck’d, sweet maid,/And not have strew’d thy grave. (Hamlet 5.1.244). Yet despite this, Hamlet had the audacity to not only break Ophelia’s heart, but also insult her like no other.