The Character Of Hamlet
Essay by 24 • December 25, 2010 • 1,135 Words (5 Pages) • 1,380 Views
Some people can identify, themselves, to a certain character. When people watch, read, or witness, someone they are able to relate themselves to it somehow. Such circumstances can also be linked with Hamlet. I believe that Hamlet is a character that we all can link ourselves with. He has almost natural human characteristics, and behaviors that make him almost familiar to many people. Hamlet has constantly shown examples of how it must feel to be in the situation he is in, such as his soliloquies, and he expresses great emotions, emotions that seem so true. Also supporting these ideas are famous writers such as William Hazlitt, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Both have a similar idea to why "there is a Hamlet in all of us". Hazlitt quotes, "Hamlet is a name; his speeches and sayings but the idle coinage of the poet's brain. What then, are they not real? They are as real as our own thoughts. Their reality is in the reader's mind. It is we who are Hamlet."
Hamlet has certain traits that make him specifically similar to many people. But what are those traits and doings? Well there are certain traits to start of with. First off, who ever has been miserable and saddened, by their own doings or people around them, who ever has had such a tragedy that they feel as if the world has totally gone against them, who ever has felt that there is not a clear distinguish between good and evil, these are all characters that for sure, most people have faced in their lives, and that is what Hamlet exhibits and I am sure most of us do as well.
Hamlet has certainly been miserable due to all that had occurred around him. First of all his father dies, his mother marries his uncle, and then his father's ghost appears saying that his uncle killed him. This is enough to make anyone want to give up or just commit suicide. What exactly can a person do in this situation if it was to be presented upon them? For sure it is not an easy task. But Shakespeare, has remarkably given Hamlet such true characteristics that make him seem as complex as most people. Just like Hamlet is at first shocked by the news, and then constantly tries to understand what will he do, that is exactly what an ordinary person would have. No one would be able to let alone the death of their father, especially if the father's ghost appears. Some would have said they would have committed murder right away, but would that be the fair thing to do.
It would wrong to jump to conclusions right away, especially if you are not uncertain about the reality. I personally, would have also tried to go and find the truth to the matters. Not everything should be believed right away, and that is what Hamlet did exactly. Shakespeare has another famous character who is Macbeth, and he does the opposite of what Hamlet did. As soon as the three witches tell him about what happened, Macbeth goes running to do as he was told. Hamlet actually waits and tries to find out the exact truth, which somewhat feels more realistic.
Hamlet also shows his realism when it comes to his feelings about his mother. I am sure that anyone would feel the way Hamlet feels, in the doings of his mother. It is obvious that no one would right away be aware of why their mother would do that, and in rage, conclude that she has no feelings toward them or she really never loved her husband. Since Hamlet was young, he could not bear the fact that his mother would do something like that not long after her husband's death. Anyone would be able to agree with this mindset that Hamlet portrays. Hamlet exclaims, "...That he might not beteem the winds of heaven visit her face to roughly. Heaven and Earth, must I remember? Why she (would) hang on him as if increase of appetite had grown by what it fed on. And yet within a month, a little month....Like Noble, all tears-why she [even she] (O God, a beast that wants discourse of reason would have mourned longer!), married with my uncle, My father's brother, but no more like my father Than I to Hercules." This part from Hamlet's first soliloquy,
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