- Published: November 15, 2021
- Updated: November 15, 2021
- University / College: Durham University
- Language: English
- Downloads: 24
In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Hamlet can be characterised as a curious individual as he goes through a adventure of getting revenge for his father and making sure nobody knows his plans.
In Act 3 Scene 1, As Hamlet is about to meet Ophelia, he goes into detail about his vision on life and death by using a lot of diction to add a deeper expression on his words to show more of a curious perspective for Hamlet as he uses words like outrageous and calamity to describe the process of how he feels on the experience of the process of life being calamity and then death being mostly outrageous. That process of thoughts makes Hamlet be seen as a over thinker as he also is in the act of being crazy to hide his actual knowledge of what he believes about Claudius being the reason of his father’s death.
In addition, Hamlet also uses a bit of figurative language most likely to compare life and death to many things that goes on in his life. As he turn death into sleep can show that Hamlet feels as if he has a deeper understanding on what death is like mostly being that a person who is dead cannot wake up and is in deep sleep and as they sleep that person will begin to have dreams of all sorts of thing. Leaving Hamlet to show himself as optimistic person who thinks death can be many things but no one will be able to know what it is till we are dead and that’s where we’ll know.
Furthermore, Hamlet uses syntax to have a deeper connection to his thoughts on life and death while also keeping in mind his revenge with Claudius. As he debates about what exactly death is by connecting it to either sleeping or reaching the end of life to basically make more sense to himself and to also give him a large variety of how he feels about himself. As he continue his questioning he shows himself as a more thought out person since in the beginning Hamlet has been pretty all over the place and was mainly confused about the situation he is currently in right now.
Finally, to let himself see the life and death thoughts in a easier prospective Hamlet has used imagery to give a deeper view on what he thinks life and death is in form. As he goes on what goes on during death he becomes more descriptive by giving us a image of how a person dies by saying it’s like a shock from a heartache that was given from our planet or just as we know today as a heart attack. This shows that Hamlet is basically learning about the reality of life and death but is still unsure about the reasoning behind it besides how does it happens which also includes what happens when you are dead.
In conclusion, Hamlet can be characterised as a morbid individual as he is currently still has a lot of anger for his family. Since he really does not want to be in the current position he is now by having to kill his uncle who has also killed his father to take over and is now married to his mother. As the story continues he continues to have this unhealthy method of keeping a secret to himself by acting crazy to not letting other know of his plot on assassinating his uncle. But it also leads to him being more understanding what is currently going on with him and his family and decides to continue with his plan with a steady mind.