Hamlet Personal Connection

Jenifer Hanki

Mrs. Jontig

APELAC Period 0

9 Nov 2015

Personal Connection to Hamlet

        In the great Shakespearian play, Hamlet, the story unravels the tragedy focused on its main character who undergoes psychological trauma from having lost his father.  Hamlet, as the audience knows is mentally unstable in many situations and while Hamlet remains contemplative and thoughtful about his vengeance for his father, Laertes and Fortinbras are clearly different by acting impetuously and act before they truly understand the situation as described as “To be great/ is not to stir without great argument/ but to find a quarrel in a straw/ when honor’s at stake” (Shakespeare 4.4 56-59).  In similarity, I too have found that I act similarly to Hamlet by overly analyzing a situation without actually producing any tangible effect.  When I was in sixth grade, I was unknowingly disturbing others by talking loudly in class on several occasions and was forced to stay for detention.  Ashamed and mentally shocked that I had received a detention, for those next days, I overthought every action the teacher made and believed that she was the sole reason that my life was depressing.  After a week however, I realized that it was merely my own doing for misunderstanding the issue and not taking action by talking to my teacher as to why I had received the detention.  Similarly, I believe that the reason Hamlet was brought down to his demise was that he did not take affirmative action towards avenging his father and thus led to a “muddy death” as Hamlet quoted.  It is important that while remaining to act impulsively can lead to more unrefined consequences, it should be noted to act with thoughtfulness.