ESSay on HamLEt
First of all, the placement of the whole play apart from two scenes (Act4 scene 4 and Act 5 scene 1) is in the castle Elsinore. We start off with the death of King Hamlet, he has been killed by his brother; Claudius who immediately takes control of King Hamlets throne.
The only person still mourning for King Hamlets death is his son Hamlet who is quite sad, lonely, upset and sometimes confused about his fathers death; his feelings could be shown on screen by lazy, slow movements and reactions as well as confused, deep speeches.
In the first scene, Shakespeare creates an atmosphere of anxiety and dread using conversations between characters which don't flow, have no rhythm
" Barnardo: who's there?"
" Francisco: Nay answer me. Stand and unfold yourself."
As you can see in this there is no rhythm that Shakespeare creates. This kind of change of flow in the language creates effects of dread, anxiety and unease. At the start Shakespeare establishes the character of Horatio being well educated as Horatio signals to the audience how ghosts or that a ghost can never exist " Before my God, I might not this believe Without the sensible and true avouch Of my own eyes" as is shown in this quote. The first appearance of the ghost in scene 2, Marcellus describes it as being "majestical" but as the scene and conversation progresses Horatio describes the ghost as "like a guilty thing" guilty which establishes the nature and in some way the intentions to the audience. Act 1 scene 2 contrasts dramatically to the first scene as the mood of the scene is completely different due to the marriage of Claudius to King Hamlet's (ex)-wife Gertrude. This creates an atmosphere of celebration, staging for this scene could be the marriage party going on: on one side and Hamlet on another side still upset about his father's death. In a conversation with his mother he is shocked and offended by her as she says he is acting to be sad about his fathers death " why seems it so particular with thee" and it is at this point Hamlet realises that his mother must have been acting for the last few weeks as she has forgotten about his death so quickly "'tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother". This could have been said by him just after what his mother said as a thought tracking so everyone else would freeze and he would come alive and say this, this would add an affect to it of him and the audience knowing something but not the characters which it is actually about, Hamlet should also say this sentence in a tense kind of way to enforce his feelings towards his mum.
Soon after this he begins to deliver his first soliloquy, Shakespeare uses soliloquy's to get Hamlet's inner feelings, intentions and emotions out in the open to the audience and to give a hint of what is going to happen next. In this soliloquy the words he uses show how weary and tired he is " how weary, stale, flat and unprofitable" he should say this with an angry and tired tone of voice. He then goes on to say about his father's love for his mother "so loving to my mother, That he might not beteem the winds ...
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Soon after this he begins to deliver his first soliloquy, Shakespeare uses soliloquy's to get Hamlet's inner feelings, intentions and emotions out in the open to the audience and to give a hint of what is going to happen next. In this soliloquy the words he uses show how weary and tired he is " how weary, stale, flat and unprofitable" he should say this with an angry and tired tone of voice. He then goes on to say about his father's love for his mother "so loving to my mother, That he might not beteem the winds of heaven visit her face too roughly" this he could say with a gentle tone of voice, this quote means that his father loved Gertrude so much that he wouldn't let the winds of heaven go past her face too quickly. Then he goes on too say how his mother betrayed his father " Must I remember: why she would hang on him, As if increase of appetite had grown by what it fed on; and yet within a mother ", he is very angry with his mother for moving on so quickly (just within a month) which is actually quite a long time but he feels it is not enough. He then comes to a conclusion that all women are weak and unfair " frailty thy name is women".
In this whole soliloquy he has nothing but love for his father and how he protected Gertrude from anything and everything and he said how "excellent" a king his father was. At the end he says (with a low, sad, lost tone of voice) how he will be forced to suffer in silence " But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue" for the audience these words are ironic because they know that King Hamlets ghost or a ghost is wandering the castle and that Hamlet will blatantly not suffer in silence and will get revenge.
In Act 1 scene 3 Ophelia and her brother Laertes are introduced talking or arguing about the truth of Hamlets love for Ophelia, Laertes is trying to convince his little, easily convincible sister that Hamlets love is a season, it will pass away and while it is here it is potentially dangerous, still young he is bound to change " Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood... Froward, not permanent". Soon after this Ophelia's father, Polonius comes into the scene as well and they have an argument about Hamlets love, this scene I think has a purpose which is to show how she argues with her father and later on how she argues with Hamlet and how she is in a way less argumentative with Hamlet. " He hath my lord of late, made many tenders of his affection for me" says Ophelia to Polonius, this shows how she is standing up to her dad but later on in Act 3 scene 1 she doesn't stand up too well to Hamlet, this may be because Hamlet is the person she really loves and trusts but when she is let down by him, she doesn't know what to do or say, and the really funny thing is that it is the same with Hamlet and his mother; she is the one closest to him and he trusts her but is let down by her and is confused about what to do. Another reason for Ophelia being like this is that if she stands up to her father he will not physically harm her whereas with Hamlet she has a fear of him.
The next two scenes are crucial in the development of the characters because this is where the certain twist comes into the story as King Hamlet returns to talk to Hamlet as a ghost.
The time and atmosphere is cleverly introduced by Shakespeare as a conversation between Horatio and Marcellus " It is nipping and an eager air... What hour now?" " I think it lacks twelve". In the conversation between the ghost and Hamlet it is revealed that King Hamlet was poisoned by Claudius and how Hamlets father wants Hamlet to take revenge. In this conversation the ghost's language is very carefully thought out as he is exaggerating everything to make it more likely for Hamlet to do what he says by making him feel sorry for him. He says how bad purgatory is and then says about Gertrude but says for him to not think ill of her. He then says Hamlet must get revenge. This conversation and scene brings the biggest change in Hamlets character as he turns from sad, lonely university student to an intellectual who thinks too much and from this scene onwards he like a pendulum always wandering whether to get revenge or not and his problem is that he thinks too much and is all thinking really, he doesn't take action upon his thinking.
The next important change in Hamlet's character however comparatively minor a change. The scene starts off with the King, Gertrude, Rosencrantz and Guildernstern talking about Hamlets sudden change in attitude " And can you by no drift of circumstance get from him why he puts on this confusion" the King asks the pir if they know why he is acting to be confused. Guildernstern says it is "crafty madness" that Hamlet is putting on; Gertrude thinks it's Ophelia's beauty, which is causing this "wildness" in him. The king begins to feel guilty as he reveals of him carrying a heavy burden " O heavy burthen". Then Hamlet's most famous soliloquy, which has the purpose once again to tell the audience of his intentions and feelings, he could be staged in the middle of the stage and as if he is actually talking to the audience and his tone of voice could be smuggish but upset, angry. " To be, or not to be, that is the question: whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them." These first few beautifully written lines mean that he should either sit and wait for whatever happens or to take action against his enemies. This is a metaphor and is confused on purpose, it states Hamlets feelings on how he alone has to fight the world, and it would be like committing suicide. The rest of the soliloquy has no mention of him, his father, mother or his situation and is general sayings which you could show him reading from somewhere " Thus conscience does make a coward of us all", He should say this in a tired sort of a sighing way. Then comes Hamlets dialogue with Ophelia which has quite a few purposes, to establish Hamlets character change from a sad, upset, hero sort to an angry revengeful villain-minded person. Hamlet basically is so out of order to Ophelia because he wants to show everyone how much he has changed and how villainous he has and will turn to get revenge. In this scene everything he says has a double meaning because he knows everyone is listening and everything he says to Ophelia he means to his mother as well which is why he is being quite incredibly rude to Ophelia. " Get to thee nunnery" is amongst one of the rude things he says to Ophelia, this can mean two things, either that she should be sent to a brothel or a nunnery where she will not harm anyone. I think what he really means is that she should be sent to a nunnery so no one can do what he did to her again because he does still love her which is why he is acting so angry and out of order because when you love someone and pretend to hate them, you end up hating them too much. At this point of the play Hamlets character is as lost as it will get, he is pretending to be mad and trying to fool everyone but he himself is fooled and lost in his own madness so deep that it is hard to recover, his character does not change much if not at all after this scene. So Hamlet has gone from a sad, upset person to a bit of a psychopathic character whom his lost inside his own madness.
Hope you enjoyed it, but sadly THE END
Don't forget to S-T-B [1876 words]
Ahmad Bhatti Essay on HAMLET 10U
