Do you agree with critics who argue that Hamlet's death and the appointment of Fortinbras as king are deeply unsatisfactory and bring no real restoration of order to the play?

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Do you agree with critics who argue that Hamlet’s death and the appointment of Fortinbras as king are deeply unsatisfactory and bring no real restoration of order to the play?

At the end of Act Five, Shakespeare has re-established Hamlet as a traditional Elizabethan revenge tragedy through the bloody catharsis at the end of the play, the purpose of this being to cleanse Denmark of the corrupt and to restore order, although it is doubtful whether Hamlet’s revenge achieves this aim.

         It is during Act Five that Hamlet regains his heroic status: “it is I, Hamlet the Dane” and his supposed madness diminishes. Hamlet once again embraces his Christian faith, realising that “there’s a divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will”, this theme would reflect the orthodox Christian beliefs of the audience. Hamlet now believes that God is in control, and that he can only slightly alter his destiny; perhaps Hamlet realises that it is destiny that Fortinbras should take the throne, although there is little else he could do to stop this. All Hamlet can do is give Fortinbras his “dying voice”, which will perhaps stop civil war within Denmark. Although the appointment of Fortinbras, an outsider, to restore order appears to be devised by Shakespeare, it follows the conventional revenge tragedy. The Branagh version of Hamlet portrays Fortinbras’ arrival as a planned invasion of Denmark. The timing in the plot of Hamlet, although seemingly contrived follows the classical convention of the amalgamation of time, place and action. The purpose of this portrayal is to make the somewhat whimsical plot of Hamlet believable to a modern day audience. 

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        It is not until act five that Hamlet takes on the role of archetypal revenger. Until now, Hamlet has been bound from doing anything by his own procrastination and fear of damnation as “conscience doth make cowards of us all”. In act five he begins to use the language of a revenger in a more decisive way as he readies himself for the killing of Claudius: “he hath kill’d my king and whor’d my mother…to kill him with this arm?” Through the act of revenge, Hamlet also achieves his own wish, his death. This ends his bitter fight with his ...

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