Hamlet, Laertes and Fortinbras are all reflections on each other. Discuss.

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Hamlet, Laertes and Fortinbras are reflections of each other. Discuss.

 “The world is a looking glass.” This synecdochic statement of 19th century English novelist, William Makepeace Thackeray, encapsulates the idea of reflections of ourselves being evident all around us in different aspects of the world. Whether in the words, actions or attitudes of others, we tend to see something of ourselves. Shakespeare employs this theme of reflection in his works such as in Antony and Cleopatra where Caesar recognises that Antony is, as stated by Maecenas, “a spacious mirror set before him” and this reflects to Caesar both the dimensions of he and his fellow triumvir, leading Caesar to the realisation that the world is not big enough for the two of them as can be interpreted from “…we could not stall together/ In the whole world.”  Reflection is thus a recurrent motif in Shakespeare’s works, and is a key issue which arises in the course of the play Hamlet.

Hamlet is a play which involves a lot of reflection and mirroring in various ways. One of the most notable is the ‘play within a play’ or ‘The Mousetrap’ which mirrors the relationship King Hamlet had with Gertrude as well as the manner in which King Hamlet was murdered. Hamlet himself sees performance as a way of reflecting inner corruption; holding “the mirror up to nature.” The idea of mirroring or doubling can further be seen in Shakespeare’s use of literary techniques like hendiadys such as in Hamlet’s reflective ‘To be, or not to be’ soliloquy where he says, slings and arrows of outrageous fortune’ and whips and scorns of time’  or later in the play where Hamlet says to Horatio, “Fortune’s  buffets and rewards.” Shakespeare’s use of hendiadys helps to place emphasis on the message he is trying to get across as the words mirror each other and act as a sort of parallelism, creating a balance in the phrases. But even more notable in the play with regards reflection, is the manner in which the characters of Hamlet, Laertes and Fortinbras reflect on each other.      

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These three characters are all young men who, at some point, have lost or will lose a father. Hamlet has returned to Denmark from school in Wittenberg to mourn his father’s death and is so much in grief that he says, “How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable/ Seem to me all the uses of this world!” The use of lists and exclamation marks emphasises the extent of his grief and make us sympathise with him. Young Fortinbras has also lost his father, Fortinbras, as we come to know from Horatio’s speech that King Hamlet “Did slay this Fortinbras.” Laertes, in the ...

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This is an uneven essay. The writer shows a good knowledge of the text and an effective attention to textual detail, with well used terminology. With better planning and structuring, it would have achieved a more focused response. ***