Hamlet causes the deaths of many people by the end of Act 5. To what extent does Shakespeare cause us to have sympathy for his Tragic Hero?

Authors Avatar
Jake Gallop                                 Hamlet Cw Hamlet causes the deaths of many people by the end of Act 5. To what extent does Shakespeare cause us to have sympathy for his Tragic Hero? Shakespeare causes us to have sympathy for his tragic hero Hamlet; because of the moral dilemmas he is situated in. The murder of King Hamlet, Hamlets father who was killed by Claudius is one of his situations. Claudius, the brother of king Hamlet then married his wife we are also aware he only killed him for the throne. Therefore Hamlet has to seek revenge for his uncle. But there are parts of the play where we have no sympathy for Hamlet whatsoever. For example when he kills the innocent Polonius, thinking it was Claudius and he also kills a few more people within the play. Also throughout the story Hamlet is stuck in many religious and moral dilemmas.                                                                                                We have sympathy for Hamlet when, unlike Denmark, he has religious convictions. This is proven due to the fact of Denmark being a corrupt country. This again is proven by the Danish people working on a Sunday, which is considered a rest day in the Christian Bible, and as Denmark is a Christian country, they should not be working. This contrasts to Hamlet who is portrayed as a holy man. It was said “something rotten in this state of Denmark”. The word rotten is a metaphor for the monarchy. We see that the King Claudius is the one who is rotten after murdering his brother, King Hamlet.                                                                        Hamlet is in many impossible situations throughout the play, thus causing us, the audience to have sympathy for him. During the play Hamlet is unsure if he should commit suicide to escape his moral dilemmas so he delays his suicidal thoughts which also causes sympathy as it tells the audience that he hasn’t decided yet, meaning he
Join now!
hasn’t planned to kill the king, yet Hamlet thinks on many occasions when to kill Claudius, for example when he found Claudius praying in the church. This would have been an excellent situation to kill Claudius. Both alone in the Church, but Hamlet decides not to kill him because Claudius is in the Church and Hamlet believes that if you die in Church you are sent to heaven. But obviously Hamlet doesn’t want Claudius to go to heaven; he wants him to go to hell so he delays his revenge for the time being. This is proven by the quote ...

This is a preview of the whole essay