Hamlet is a well-known tragedy written by William Shakespeare in the year 1600.

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-  Introduction:

Hamlet is a well-known tragedy written by William Shakespeare in the year 1600. It is about a Prince of Denmark who at the beginning of the play is murdered by his own brother named Claudius. Claudius then takes the throne, and in the process marries the old king’s wife and Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude. Hamlet then, later on in the play finds out about his fathers unnatural murder. But instead of revenging his father’s death, he dilly dallies a lot therefore elongating the play, but in the end avenges his father’s death by justly slaying his murderous uncle Claudius. Although many other characters as well as Claudius die by the end the play this includes Hamlet himself.

In all the plays of William Shakespeare’s tragedies, there are main characters or is a main character. These main characters almost always have fatal flaws, for example, Othello’s was jealousy, Macbeth’s was ambition, and Hamlets fatal flaw was delay. A fatal flaw is fault or problem usually in the main character or protagonist, which causes them to act (or in Hamlet’s case not to act) in a certain way that will affect the plot of the play. In “Hamlet”, the fatal flaw of Hamlet is that he is by nature an indecisive and procrastinative person, this inability to act or to decide is what drags out, prolongs, and makes “Hamlet” such a long play. You can also tell that Hamlets character is quite a thoughtful one as during the play he speaks a total number of seven soliloquies, the most spoken in any one of William Shakespeare’s plays. What a soliloquy is is basically when a character speaks to him or her self-letting out their feelings when they are alone on stage. (Sometimes the person speaking the soliloquy is not actually alone, but may be being spied on.

“Hamlet” is a particular type of tragedy, aptly named a revenge tragedy, wherein the revenger (Hamlet) starts with just and good intentions, but becomes influenced by the evil that they must perform, and the revenge in the end revenge always destroys the revenger. In Hamlet’s case, this is done and fulfilled by another character named Laertes, who avenging his own father’s death (who Hamlet killed by accident [which is a common cause of murder in revenge tragedies] mistaking him for Claudius) kills hamlet with a poisoned sword.

Revenge Tragedies were quite popular in the 1600s. This was a time of change and instability with Queen Elizabeth the first dying and without a rightful heir to the throne, there was a lot of doubt over who was to be the next king of England. There was talk of Mary Queen of Scots taking over the English throne or even James the sixth, Mary’s son. England was also in disarray over the conflict between the two dominant religions in England and Scotland at this time which were the Protestants and the Catholics, all these religious changes led to uncertainty about who was actually in charge i.e. God  

- Soliloquy number one- Act 1, Scene 2 (Hamlets 1st soliloquy)  

Hamlet’s first soliloquy in the play takes place in the main hall after the crowd disperses following the king and queen. Here in this soliloquy he is letting out the pain and anguish of his father’s death. The king and Queen have just asked and persuaded that Hamlet cast off his black garments and come out of mourning for his late fathers death, which is why Hamlet is so distressed and distraught, but for his mothers own sake he will grant their request.

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        On the very first line of Hamlet’s soliloquy, he quotes a sentence that immediately shows how he feels and reveals his state of mind at the moment. It says: ”O that this too too solid flesh would melt, thaw and resolve itself into a dew.” He is here stating that he wishes his body would just melt away so he could be no more. It shows I think how much he loved his father if he does not want to live in a world without him. Then following this he quotes: “Or that the everlasting had not fixed his cannon gainst ...

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