Hamlet

Professor Anderson

Prof. Writting

8 April 2011

Hamlet

The characters of William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet face many different conflicts such as grief, depression, duty, love, trust, and betrayal. Hamlet was an intelligent young man. Hamlet used his intelligence to avenge his father’s death. The death of Hamlet’s father and the hasty marriage of his mother Gertrude to his uncle Claudius may have been the cause of Hamlet’s plan to pretend that he is insane. Why does Hamlet delay taking revenge on King Claudius? I believe that Hamlet wanted to be sure that the news revealed from ghost of his dead father, was indeed true. By pretending to be insane, Hamlet is able to confirm his suspicion of his Uncle Claudius involvement in his father’s murder. Hamlet pretends to have, what I believe, is a brief psychotic disorder. Symptoms include hallucinations, (sensory distortions in visual, hearing, smelling, feeling, or tasting) paranoia (attitude of suspicion) and catatonic behavior (excessive, purposeless movement). Hamlet shows us that no matter your financial status or title, you are not excluded from the many different human emotions, we as human beings experience in life such as, grief, depression, duty, love, trust and betrayal.

The first conflict the characters of Hamlet face is grief. Hamlet feels lost, thoughts of confusion, disbelief, and wonders if he should just leave Denmark and go back to school. Hamlet works throughout his period of grief by staying away from his friends and family and stays inside his study reading book after book. In the film version of Hamlet directed by Franco Zefferelli, Hamlet is angry at his mother’s behavior toward his Uncle Claudius. He feels shameful of her public display of affection for his Uncle Claudius in such a short period of time. According to Marvin W. Hunt, author of Looking for Hamlet, states one of the most common themes of...