Submitted by: Submitted by olabin04
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Words: 724
Pages: 3
Category: Other Topics
Date Submitted: 02/07/2011 10:04 PM
Aleksandra Binkowska
ENG 102-76
The Real Tragedy in Hamlet
Hamlet's tragedy is a tragedy of a man who finds himself in critical circumstances. Hamlet's tragic flaw makes him a tragic hero, a character who is destroyed because of a major weakness. Many people loose their lives as a result of their wrong actions, but there are also other characters whose deaths are a result of manipulation of the royalty. In this case the real tragedy in Hamlet is not that of him or his family but of Polonius' family whose deaths were the consequence by their innocent involvement in the shemes of Hamlet and Claudius.
The first person who dies in Hamlet is Polonius. Although he was dealing with Hamlet always in deceptive way, he was doing it only because he was told to uncover the nature of Hamlet's madness. The one who created the problem and the one who was manipulating Polonius in the first place by killing Hamlet's father was the King. It was Polonius' duty to be obedient and unfortunately it proves to be fatal for him. It all results in his death when Hamlet stabs him while he was hiding in Gertude's room. Polunius' death is a tragedy because he was unaware of the situation he was in; he was killed by a member of the royalty during execution of one of their schemes.
The second member of Polunius family to die is his beautiful daughter Ophelia. Her death was tragic because of her innocence in the situation. Ophelia was completely manipulated by Hamlet and the king. We can easily see that for example when Hamlet uses her to convince his family that he is mad. She goes to Polonius to explain to him how Hamlet has scared her, causing Polonius to draw the conclusion that Hamlet is truly "mad". Unfortunately he was only using her to help word of his madness spread throughout the kingdom. Ophelia became insane after Polonius' death. She leads herself to eventual death. As Gertrude tells us, she accidentally falls in the water and then simply...