...Shakespeare's play and sets the tone of the character. Hamlet speaks these words following the recent death of his father, the hasty remarriage of his uncle and mother, and an encounter with his parents regarding their wishes for him to remain in Denmark ceasing his studies elsewhere; not in favour of Hamlet himself. This is the first time the audience becomes aware of Hamlet’s suicidal ideation and depression. Living for Hamlet is a burden, he sees himself as damned, forced to live in this world unhappy due to his religious beliefs. The theme of death is apparent in this quote and utilizes mood and atmosphere to solidify the state of Hamlet’s mind. This is the initial thought of suicide for Hamlet, verbalizing his desire for his flesh to melt and anger that God deems “self-slaughter” a sin. This provides evidence that Hamlet has considered suicide before but felt trapped because of the religious consequences of it. He also goes on to say the world is a “weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable” place alluding to the thought that suicide appears to be the best alternative to this unmanageable world. The mood is very morbid as Hamlet expresses his desire that “flesh would melt”, to leave his solid state and internal misery; continuing to describe life as an “unweeded garden/ That grows seed”. The world that had the potential for beauty is corrupted with weeds; to Hamlet there is no helping this metaphoric garden except to leave it behind. Hamlet is is depicted to be...
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...In the play Hamlet, William Shakespeare uses Especially notable in his soliloquy about suicide, Hamlet wonders about the realm of the afterlife and how it can relieve one from physical pain, yet any acts of suicide is condoned by God. He mentions how suicide is like sleep and sleepers often dream dreams. After he learns about his father’s death at the hands of his uncle, he begins to contemplate where a soul goes after death. He discusses how the spiritual aftermath of death works, how something like his father’s ghost is forced to reside in Purgatory, and he also ponders on the physical remains of death, through his close examination of Yorick’s skull and the decaying corpses in the cemetery. As Hamlet is contemplating the mystery of the afterlife and death, he brings his quest for revenge into account. He questions one’s spirit enters the afterlife, heaven or hell, based on their actions in the physical realm. This is especially noted when Hamlet finds Claudius trying to pray to heaven for repentance. Hamlet believes if he killed Claudius then his spirit will go to heaven as he has committed a righteous deed as he died. Hamlet decides that only when Claudius is committing a sin, like incest or murder or drunkenness, will his spirit go to hell. The scenario of Claudius’ death reflects this as Hamlet learns of Claudius’s sin of attempting to poison Hamlet and actually poisoning Gertrude. Leaping at the chance that Claudius has committed a sin, he kills Claudius and believes...
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...are the foundations for the most engaging moments in Hamlet. Consider YOUR understanding of Hamlet and how this statement affirms or challenges YOUR response to the play. The most engaging moments within Hamlet have been founded by the inevitable tensions encountered between the individual and society. Hamlet explores the tragic consequences of attempting to unite the two opposing forces of personal morality and societal corruption. The deception and political corruption within Denmark has detrimental effects upon an individual’s sense of self. Due to the corruption of the society around him, Hamlet’s values of integrity, loyalty, trust and honesty are destabilised, thus showing the vulnerability of the human character. Hamlet is a universal play as it transcends through both time and context with Hamlet resinating with modern audiences due to Hamlet’s confusion, he faces a struggle when asserting his morality against the disease and deceit inherent in Denmark. Shakespeare’s exploration of Hamlet’s consciousness of his own mortality and questions of his identity haunting him throughout the play lead to his inevitable death at the closing of the play. Hamlet’s loss of identity is due to his mother’s incestuous relationship with Claudius and also by the death of his father, a man he saw as an idol, with his distress and grief being demonstrated through his actions and the response of characters towards his actions. Hamlet explains to Claudius and Gertrude “together with all...
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...Hamlets madness is not an act but rather a result of him suffering from schizophrenia a form of mental illness. After the death of his father Hamlets mental health began to deteriorate as a result he went into a state of depression which inevitably evolved into a mental illness. Hamlets depression is evident as he wishes not commit suicide stating, “Or that the Everlasting had not fixed / His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God, God!” ( Act 2 Scene 1). The death of his father devastated him, and unable to cope with the grief became depressed. Hamlets depression soon evolved into schizophrenia as he began to show all the symptoms of someone suffering from such illness. First of all he began to hallucinate as when he was in his mother chamber...
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...Hamlet Theme Quotes Order vs Chaos Have you had quiet Guard (Barnardo, 1.1.10) This bodes some strange eruption in our state (Horatio 1.1.72) The source of this our watch, and the chief head / Of this post-haste and rummage in the land (Horatio, 1.1.109-110) Sickness and Decay And I am sick at heart (Barnardo, 1.19) …Upon whose influence Neptune’s empire stands, / Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse (Horatio, 1.1.122-123) Something is rotten in the state of Denmark (Marcellus, 1.4.90) And in the porches of my ears did pour / The leperous distilment, whose effect / Holds such an enmity with blood of man (Ghost, 1.5.63-65) Revenge Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder (Ghost, 1.5.25) Haste me to know’t, that I with wings as swift / As meditation or the thoughts of love / May sweep to my revenge (Hamlet, 1.5.29-31) His [Fortinbras] fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras, / Of unimproved mettle, hot and full, / Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there / Shark’d up a list of lawless resolutes / For food and diet to some enterprise / That hath stomach in’t which is no other, / As it doth well appear unto our state, / But to recover of us by strong hand / And terms compulsatory those foresaid lands / So by his father lost (Marcellus, 1.1.98-107) Reason vs Passion Thou know’st tis common: all that lives must die, / Passing through nature to eternity (Gertrude, 1.2.73-74) Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d / His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter. O God! O God! (Hamlet...
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...Hamlet Final Essay What do you think makes Shakespeare’s Hamlet such a powerful and enduring play? Thesis William Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1603) explores the intrinsic aspects of humanity creating a powerful and enduring play by subverting the audiences’ expectation of a revenge tragedy play. Shakespeare enables universal anthropological appreciation through the emphasis on the thematic concerns of: the mystery and transcendental nature of death, clouded grey areas in between the dichotomy of good and evil morals, and the twisted manipulative nature of human behaviour. Therefore, through critical study of the play, Shakespeare augments and connects to the audience’s perspective and interpretations. Body Topic sentence 1. Overarching idea i. Point ii. Quote iii. Technique iv. Elaboration Sample Sentence Linking sentence (concluding sentence) Body 1 – Death Death is the inescapable reality of human life as explored in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the fact that the living world is made of death and decay is visible anywhere there is life. 1. Hamlet’s bereavement over his father i. Bereavement is an inescapable reality in which all humans must endure. ii. “But I have more within which passes show – These but the trappings and the suits of woe” iii. Rhyming couplet iv. To reinforce Hamlet’s underlying argument to his grief over the finality of his father’s death. Bereavement is an inescapable reality, exemplified when Hamlet says...
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...obtained or lost. The characters analyzed in this essay strive for perfection, success, and vengeance through their obstacles. The quest for the ideal is important because it shapes imagination, creativity, and lifestyle. Henry A. Kissinger explains where an ideal can be found, when he concludes, “For other nations, utopia is a blessed past never to be recovered; for [some people] it is just beyond the horizon.” Kissinger describes that for some, their ideal is in the past and others it’s in the future. The three pieces of literature examined in this essay are analyzed through Kissinger’s theory. In literature the quest for the ideal can often result in the pursuer’s death, this is shown in “The Great Gatsby,” “Sailing to Byzantium,” and “Hamlet.” Gatsby’s ambition to turn back time and fall in love with Daisy again, ultimately leads him to his downfall. Gatsby wanted to turn time back because Daisy and him were once deeply in love, however after Gatsby left for war she was doubtful he would return. Daisy found a more secure relationship with Tom Buchanan and Gatsby’s new ideal was to fulfill the American Dream and win Daisy over. However the American Dream has no room for love and Gatsby isn’t ready to abandon either. Gatsby’s desire to gain the same connection he once had with Daisy, blinds him from the truth. F. Scott Fitzgerald shows Gatsby’s persistence for his ideal when he says, “Can’t repeat the past? ... Why of course you can!” He is convinced he can repeat his lost...
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...Character Analysis Hamlet Hamlet is an enigma. No matter how many ways critics examine him, no absolute truth emerges. Hamlet breathes with the multiple dimensions of a living human being, and everyone understands him in a personal way. Hamlet's challenge to Guildenstern rings true for everyone who seeks to know him: "You would pluck out the heart of my mystery." None of us ever really does. The conundrum that is Hamlet stems from the fact that every time we look at him, he is different. In understanding literary characters, just as in understanding real people, our perceptions depend on what we bring to the investigation. Hamlet is so complete a character that, like an old friend or relative, our relationship to him changes each time we visit him, and he never ceases to surprise us. Therein lies the secret to the enduring love affair audiences have with him. They never tire of the intrigue. The paradox of Hamlet's nature draws people to the character. He is at once the consummate iconoclast, in self-imposed exile from Elsinore Society, while, at the same time, he is the adulated champion of Denmark — the people's hero. He has no friends left, but Horatio loves him unconditionally. He is angry, dejected, depressed, and brooding; he is manic, elated, enthusiastic, and energetic. He is dark and suicidal, a man who loathes himself and his fate. Yet, at the same time, he is an existential thinker who accepts that he must deal with life on its own terms, that he must choose to meet...
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...Hamlet is an enigma. No matter how many ways critics examine him, no absolute truth emerges. Hamlet breathes with the multiple dimensions of a living human being, and everyone understands him in a personal way. Hamlet's challenge to Guildenstern rings true for everyone who seeks to know him: "You would pluck out the heart of my mystery." None of us ever really does. The conundrum that is Hamlet stems from the fact that every time we look at him, he is different. In understanding literary characters, just as in understanding real people, our perceptions depend on what we bring to the investigation. Hamlet is so complete a character that, like an old friend or relative, our relationship to him changes each time we visit him, and he never ceases to surprise us. Therein lies the secret to the enduring love affair audiences have with him. They never tire of the intrigue. The paradox of Hamlet's nature draws people to the character. He is at once the consummate iconoclast, in self-imposed exile from Elsinore Society, while, at the same time, he is the adulated champion of Denmark — the people's hero. He has no friends left, but Horatio loves him unconditionally. He is angry, dejected, depressed, and brooding; he is manic, elated, enthusiastic, and energetic. He is dark and suicidal, a man who loathes himself and his fate. Yet, at the same time, he is an existential thinker who accepts that he must deal with life on its own terms, that he must choose to meet it head on. "We defy augury...
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...Hamlet Motif Analysis Assignment Appearance or Reality “Horatio says ‘tis but our fantasy,/ And will not let belief take hold of him” (I,1,23-24) “In the same figure, like the king that’s dead.” (I,1,41) “Seems, madam! Nay, is is; I know not “seems.”[…] Nor the dejected haviour of the visage, / Together with all forms, modes, shapes of grief, / That can denote me truly: these indeed seem, /But I have that within which passeth show; / These, but the trappings and suits of woe. (1,1,76 and 81-86) “The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen;” (I,5,47) “That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain;” (I,5,109) “for there is nothing / either good or bad but thinking makes it so: to me it is a prison” (II,2,249-251) “The spirit that I have seen / May be the devil: and the devil hath power / To assume a pleasing shape” (II,2,596-598) “’Tis too much proved that, with devotion’s visage, And pious action, we do sugar o’er/The devil himself” (III,1,47-49) “he weeps for what is done”(IV,1,27) “Why, even in that was heaven ordinant. / I had my father’s signet in my purse, / Which was the model of that Danish seal: / Folded the writ up in form of the other; / Subscribed it; gave’t the impression; placed it safely, / The changeling never known.” (V, 2, 48-53) Clothing “Such was the very armour he had on / When he the ambitious Norway combated;” (I, 1, 60-61) “Good Hamlet, cast thy knighted colour off, / And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark...
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...War, studied for a while at the University of Mississippi, and temporarily worked for a New York bookstore and a New Orleans newspaper. Except for some trips to Europe and Asia, and a few brief stays in Hollywood as a scriptwriter, he worked on his novels and short stories on a farm in Oxford. In an attempt to create a saga of his own, Faulkner has invented a host of characters typical of the historical growth and subsequent decadence of the South. The human drama in Faulkner's novels is then built on the model of the actual, historical drama extending over almost a century and a half Each story and each novel contributes to the construction of a whole, which is the imaginary Yoknapatawpha County and its inhabitants. Their theme is the decay of the old South, as represented by the Sartoris and Compson families, and the emergence of ruthless and brash newcomers, the Snopeses. Theme and technique - the distortion of time through the use of the inner monologue are fused particularly successfully in The Sound and the Fury(1929), the downfall of the Compson family seen through the minds of several characters. The novel Sanctuary (1931) is about the degeneration of Temple Drake, a young girl from a distinguished southern family. Its sequel, Requiem For A Nun (1951), written partly as a drama, centered on the courtroom trial of a Negro woman who had once been a party to Temple Drake's debauchery. InLight in August (1932), prejudice is shown to be most destructive when it is internalized...
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...interested in “the structure of the human frame, and… any animal endued with life,” therefore he got acquainted with his studies on anatomy (Shelly 37). Here occurs a differing change in Victor’s interests; if the well-being of human society was his interest before, now he is interested in humans and animals - the concept of life. Because of his devotedness towards such topic, he begins his independent research. Victor does this by digging up graves and uncovering various body parts, while quoting that “ Darkness had no effect upon [his] fancy; and a churchyard was...the receptacle of bodies deprived of life, which...had become food for the worm” (Shelley 37). Shelley here juxtaposes the aesthetics of the church with the ugliness and the decay of the death. By comparing the dead bodies as the nutrients for insects, Shelley defines the meaning of ‘death’ for Victor, and this definition became the genesis for the creation of the creature. According to the text, Victor has been working nearly for two years “for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body” (Shelley 43). From this, it is possible to infer that his devotedness is heavy. Then, however, a question arises: What is his drive? For what does he spend so much time and energy as he is already “deprived [himself] of rest and health?” (Shelley 43). Victor has declared that he will achieve further by “pioneering a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation.” There exist...
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...Chapter II: literature of the renaissance (End of the 15th - beginning of the 17th century) In the 15th - 16th centuries capitalist relation began to develop in Europe. The former townspeople became the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie fought against feudalism because it held back the development of capitalism. The decay of feudalism and the development of capitalist relation were followed by a great rise in the cultural life of Europe. There was an attempt at creating a new culture which would be free from the limitation of the feudal ideology of the Middle Ages. The epoch was characterized by a thirst for knowledge and discoveries, by a powerful development of individuality. It was then that great geographical discoveries of Columbus, Magellan and other travelers as well as astronomical discoveries of Copernicus, Bruno, Galilei were made. The invention of the printing press (Fyodorov in Russia, Guttenberg in Germany, Caxton in England) contributed to the development of culture in all European countries. Universities stopped being citadels of religious learning and turned into centers of humanist study. There was a revival of interest in the ancient culture of Greece and Rome ("Renaissance" is French for "rebirth"). The study of the works of ancient philosophers, writers, and artists helped the people to widen their outlook, to know the world and man's nature. On the basis of both the ancient culture and the most progressive elements of the culture of the...
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...ART APOCALYPSE AND MILLENIALISM (Name) (Institution affiliation) (Course) (Date) APOCALYPSE AND MILLENIALISM Introduction As the societies embrace the turn of a millennium, there is, historically, a perceived notion that this is a portentous time- a time of jubilation, may be, but on equal grounds, and may be more persistently, a time of apprehension. Five hundred year cycles system appears to be as significant as the thousand year cycles. Discussion In Thomas Schutte’s Efficiency Men (2005), there are three enormous ghostly figures of men. These figures are standing on thin spirals of steel and are covered by heavy dark blankets from which emerge perturbing faces modeled in colored silicon. Resembling grotesque figures in costume, these effigies of corrupt, scandal ridden contemporary society slope in a sinister fashion across the room of exhibition; they might be well an embodiment of the death that is elicited in the artwork of paintings on the walls. Mysterious and enigmatic, are a combination of artifice and superficiality, urging us to get involved more directly with the reality of our everyday world. This is the only way in which the dialogue between art and society can become truly meaningful (Dogana, 2014). This artwork by Schutte, explicitly displays the hopelessness and devastation of humanity which is evoked probably by the thoughts and imaginations of apocalyptic events. The human race is doomed and...
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...INSTRUCTIONS * Read the notes on sonnets. * Read the sonnets and answer the questions that follow each. * Complete the writing assignment Shakespeare’s Sonnets: The Mysteries of Love Shakespeare. The name calls to mind the great plays whose characters have come to life on stages around the world: Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Othello. Yet had Shakespeare written no plays at all, his reputation as a poet, as the author of the Sonnets (1609), would still have been immense. There are 154 sonnets altogether; their speaker is male, and their chief subject is love. Beyond those three points, however, there is little agreement, only questions: • Is the sonnets’ speaker a dramatic character invented by Shakespeare, like Romeo, Macbeth, or Hamlet, or is he the poet himself? • If the sonnets are about the real man Shakespeare, then who are the real people behind the characters the sonnets mention? • Is the order in which the sonnets were originally published (probably without Shakespeare’s consent) the correct or the intended sequence? Could they be arranged to tell a more coherent story? Should they be so arranged? These and dozens of other questions about the sonnets have been asked and answered over and over again—but never to everybody’s satisfaction. We have hundreds of conflicting theories but no absolutely convincing answers. About the individual sonnets, though, if not the whole sequence, agreement is perfect: They are among the supreme utterances in English...
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