Hamlets Characterisation Essay Example for Free

settlements Characterisation EssayThe aspect of Shakespeares village that is or so interesting to me is the playwrights intimate depiction of Hamlets daily struggle againt the world. Through soliloquies and characterisation, we see that Hamlets world is a algid, political one, unreceptive to his grief, and this fundamental incompatibility is ultimately what creates and drives the plays great manoeuvre behind his struggle, his murderous plot, uncertainty, and final examly his thoughtful, accepting resolve at the end of the play.Early in the play we see this great incompatibility among Hamlet and his society emerging, as he, stricken with grief, is surrounded by cold political plotters. Shakespeare revels in his use of irony, as Claudius utters the oxymoron lawful espials, and Polonius, evangelising that this above all else to thine avow self be true, endeavours with this bait of falsehood to by indirections chance on directions out and thus take this carp of truth.Hamlet c ontinues this tradition of fish-related metaphors in accusing Polonius of being a fishmonger, a claim which reflects his own struggle to comprehend how cold and contriving his society is. Hamlet even wonders how a beast that wants discourse of reason would have mourned longer than his mother, Gertrude, the pernicious woman whose saltiness of most unrighteous tears falls from merely galled eyes.That she could be like Niobe is a twisted classical allusion which adds to the sentiment of tenseness which Hamlet feels against his society, which, in the disillusioned wake of his grief, he has found is superficial and immoral, especially as one may smile, and smile, and be a villain, while right itself of vice must beg and rank corruptionmining withininfects unseen. Thus this great tautness forms an integral break a trend of the early part of the play and drives the drama which underlies Hamlets characterisation, and his struggle to find where he belongs in this morally void society.Ha mlets soililoquy at the end of influence II reveals how this tension has acted upon his soul. He questions his own sanity, asking if it is, in fact, the pleasing shape of the devil, which abuses me to damn me. This particular tension between Hamlet and his world is what reveals several(prenominal) important character elements in Hamlet. That the Player could invoke such(prenominal) passion in such a superficial fiction, and for Hecuba at that, while Hamlet sits statically racked with indecision, is reflective of the superficiality which frustrates him and drives him to see imself as a dull and muddy-mettled rascal. It drives him inwards to consider what kind of person he is, and how best to resolve the tension which has evolved as a result of his societys immorality. Yet as the soliloquy changes tone dramatically, and marked by Hamlets cry of Oh, payback , the apostrophic appeal to Nemesis herself reveals an early attempt to break free from these chains of indecision and uncertai nty set upon him due to his struggle.Thus the tension between him and his immoral peers is what ultimately produces this first change of heart, from pigeon-livered to the successful invocation of the mythical figure, the rugged Pyrrhus, out to drink hot blood, whom he struggled to portray and exercise earlier in the scene. That the tension is so central to this first episode of self-realisation, and subsequent ascents to face-to-face conviction, reflects how truly crucial his struggle and journey towards self-understanding is to Hamlets textual integrity.Hamlets obsession with death, beginning with the Act III soliloquy not long after, is another seeming affliction brought on by this grievous tension with the world around our hero. That the world could so easily forget a human life, and that this life was that of a king, brings on a heavy sense of aporia for the young prince, as he struggles to reconcile the significance of life with the great ease with which it is forgotten when lost.His turn to what dreams may come when we have shuffled moody this mortal coil forms part of the plaintive introspection revealed by this soliloquy as he searches for truth, away from the pangs of disprized love for which he was informed that to persever in unflinching condolement isunmanly grief. His obsession with death throughout the play and in this soliloquy is hence marked as a decided escape from the perpetual tension with his society and its many unknowable uncertainties, as portrayed by a play whose opening line is whos there .Death plays the subroutine of the only certain, pure truth, as symbolised by the memento mori of Act V, the skull held in Hamlets hand which in all its graspable physicality and washy perishability becomes a source of finality, and certainty for the young prince. His tension with society is characterised by great inaction and uncertain angst, but in death, all souls return to irresponsible dust. Whether they bear the pate of a politician or the skull of a lawyer is insignificant in this regard, for een so, even the great horse parsley looked o this fashion ithearth.He finds great solace in the promise of this finality away from the contrarious moods of his comrades. This characterises the self-reckoning which ultimately leads him to his final resolvel and faith by which he stands ready to once more face his society and his fate, whatever it may be. With this sentiment he remarks there is Providence in the fall of a sparrowlet be. Lastly, Hamlet and Ophelias relationship with the world reveal analogous tensions which manifest in different slipway and provide interesting insights into the dramatic consequences of this tension.Ophelia and Hamlets relationship is torn apart by Polonius meddling. Hamlets proclamation that frailty, thy name is woman foreshadows the way that we soon see Ophelia being influenced to a great extent by her filial, obedient devotion to Polonius, so much so that, struggling to reconcile her pers onal integrity and her duty to her family, she descends into her own madness, divided from herself and her fair judgment, without the which we are pictures, or mere beasts.Polonius, the fishmonger, tells her that her love is that of a green girl, and her submission to such worldly expectations is what begets her destruction. Yet even in her insanity she finds a resolve which, though markedly more frenzied, mirrors Hamlets own. Her flowers are each symbols of denouncement of the courts treacherous figures, whose rue with a difference Ophelia insists they must acknowledge for their most distressing actions.There is thus a great tension which arises out of the persistent degradation of the lovers relationship, and their final destruction at the hands of Laertes for Hamlet, and in the river for Ophelia. These elements are undeniably integral elements of the play which drive its enduring drama and converge to form a crucial part of Hamlets textual integrity. Thus we can see that the ten sion of the world, manipulative, cold and immoral, as it acts on the fundamentally honest, if perhaps naive prince, is the source of the great drama which underpins Hamlets struggle through the play to pit his own psyche against that of his peers.This tension time and time again proves to be central to a true consideration and understanding of Hamlets episodes of character evolution which sees him descend into the swart depths of his worlds uncertainty. It is only with the realisation and grasping of truth, whether he finds this in the finality of death or the power of fate, that Hamlet ascends once more to the safe anchorage of sanity and resolve, and finds the courage and conviction needed to face his society once more, and finally his death.