Hamlet Essay, Research Paper
Hamlet
To many people William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is the most vivid and descriptive tragedy that he has ever written. In all classic tragedies the hero suffers, and usually dies at the end. Othello stabs himself, Romeo and Juliet commit suicide, Brutis falls on his sword, and like them, Hamlet dies by getting cut with a poison tipped sword. But that is not the only element that is needed to consider a play a tragedy. Many times a hero does not even need to die. There are more ingredients needed to label a play a tragedy than just a hero and a sad ending. If every action is controlled by a hero’s destiny, then the hero’s death can not be avoided, and in a tragedy most deaths are foreshadowed by some kind of an event and some how many of these deaths can be prevented. Hamlet’s death could have been avoided numerous times. Also Hamlet had many opportunities to kill Claudius, but did not take advantage of them. The reason Hamlet wanted to wait to kill Claudius is because Hamlet wanted to prove to everyone that Claudius killed his father for one reason only, to take over the kingdom. If Hamlet had killed Claudius with out proving to the people what Claudius had done, Hamlet would have been just as immoral as Claudius. There are no rules in story writing that say a hero has to be a good person, but Hamlet was a proud and noble person and he wanted to make his father proud. A tragic hero does not always have to die in the end of the play. While in most Shakespearean tragedies, the hero does die, in many other plays the hero may live but suffer “Moral Destruction” for the rest of his life. In Oedipus Rex, the proud yet morally blind king plucks out his eyes, and has to spend his remaining days as a wandering, sightless beggar, guided at every painful step by his daughter, Antigone. A misconception about tragedies is that nothing good comes out of them, but it is actually the opposite. In Romeo and Juliet both of them die to prove their love for each other, but, in the end, they ended the feud between the Capulets and the Montegues families. In Hamlet, although Hamlet dies, it is almost for the best. How could he have any pleasure during the rest of his life, with his parents and Ophelia dead? Although Hamlet dies, he is able to kill Claudius and get rid of the evil ruling the throne. Hamlet is also successful in proving to the entire kingdom that Claudius is an evil man for killing his father. The tragic hero must possess many good traits, as well as one flaw, which eventually will lead to his downfall. A tragic hero must be brave and noble. In Othello, Othello had one fatal flaw, he was too great. Othello was too brave, too noble, and especially too proud to allow himself to be led back to Venice in chains. A tragic hero must not back down from his position. But Hamlet like all other tragic hero’s had a flaw. He could not get around to doing anything, because he could not move past his father’s death. He was a full grown adult, yet he still attended school in England. Hamlet could not get around to killing Claudius. He kept pretending he was insane even after he was sure that Claudius killed his father. Hamlet is the perfect example of the tragic hero. He had all good traits needed to be a tragic hero. He was brave and daring. One example of these trait is when he went to England, he took a big risk. If his plan had not worked, he would have been executed. He was also a very loyal person. His loyalty to his father and the people in his village, was the reason he was so angry at Claudius and his mother. Another trait that he was important in his fight against evil was his intelligence. He was able to think up the idea of faking insanity, in order to get more information about Claudius. Hamlet was to most, the greatest tragic hero that Shakespeare ever produced. Hamlet showed great poise in the time that surrounded his father’s death. He was able to prove that Claudius was indeed an immoral man for killing his father. Hamlet showed the common traits that go along with a hero. He was brave, intelligent, witty, and loyal. He fought for what was right and in the end he won. Though Hamlet may have lost his life, he did indeed win the battle. He gave pride back to the people in his village and pride back to the crown, which was once worn proudly by his dead father.