A statistician would balk at the idea of analyzing women in Hamlet: as there are only two members of the fairer sex in the entire cast, surely any observations drawn are unreliable. However, when approaching Hamlet, it is best to remember that...

Shakespeare’s plays employ many allusions to religious stories and beliefs. Hamlet and Measure for Measure, for example, both address religious themes and incorporate religious imagery. However, Shakespeare’s personal religious beliefs have never...

In the introduction for Hamlet in William Shakespeare: A Textual Companion, Gary Taylor writes that “of all the two-text plays, Hamlet comes closest to Lear in the scale and complexity of the textual variation apparently resulting from authorial...

Deception is a critical component of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Its appears most significantly in Claudius concealing murder and Hamlet concealing knowledge of the same. Hamlet also feigns madness in order to misguide others and attempt to prove...

Ophelia’s situation in Shakespeare’s Hamlet not only invokes pity in the reader but also provides an example of the nature of men and women and accentuates Hamlet’s tragic flaws. Shakespeare so beautifully links the female with the liquid,...

When Hamlet’s father orders him to kill Claudius, Hamlet’s reaction is one of questioning and disbelief. While he feels strongly about the murder of his father and yearns to discover the killer, he harbors suspicions about the truth behind the...

Why has Hamlet captivated actors, critics and audiences for centuries? What makes Hamlet himself so mysterious? Unlike most characters, who are defined by what can be seen on stage, Hamlet appears to be “constructed around an unseen or secret...

In the aftermath of Old Hamlet’s demise, Hamlet cannot think of anything other than death, and over the course of the play he considers it from various points of view. The inquiry of his own death plagues Hamlet as he constantly considers whether...

Metatheatre, a form of self-reflexivity in drama, plays a pivotal role in Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Tom Stoppard’s parodic version, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Self-reflexivity is conveyed through metatheatrical scenes, or scenes that...

In order to truly appreciate life, or recognize its value, one must be able to comprehend the powerful finality that accompanies death. Furthermore, there also must be comprehension of this topic when seeking to destroy and inflict death on...

In an excerpt from Sir Robert Filmer’s The Natural Power of Kings, the defined paternal positions of father and king are inextricably synonymous. In the periods in which William Shakespeare’s plays Hamlet, Prince of Denmark and King Lear both...

Insanity is defined as doing something over and over again and expecting a different outcome. In Shakespeare'sHamlet, the young and not fully matureHamlet might be thought of asinsane. However, althoughhe says and doesthings that are out of the...

I. Introduction

Past critics have deemed Ophelia an insignificant and marginal character in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, functioning only to further define Hamlet. One such critic, Jacques Lacan, interprets Ophelia as a mere object of Hamlet’s sexual...

Tom Stoppards Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is a postmodernist adaptation of the lives of two seemingly appurtenant characters from Shakespeares Hamlet. In the story, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern search for meaning in their isolated...

Controversial issues such as incest and murder are tough to discuss and even more difficult to resolve. Literature often employs such realities to leave the reader in a state of thought, rarely offering answers or even stances on the issues. In...

In Western literature, sacrifice is often regarded as a noble act because it invokes the powerful image of Christ's death. Many writers throughout history have used this familiar association to reprimand the prevalence of selfishness in the human...

Implicit in the schema of Hamlet lies the idea that an immoral world order has established itself, imposing political and social significance onto the once purely corporeal sense and function of ears and hearing. Although one must necessarily rely...

A common interpretation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, based on the widely read Folio edition of the text, is that the titular character is motivated by darkness, exhibiting depression and suicidal tendencies. The young prince often refers to suicide,...

Guilt, like a disease of the mind, has the power to consume one's sanity, govern one's emotions and demolish one's life. In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare and in the novel Fifth Business by Robertson Davies, guilt dominates the lives of...

Hamlet: A Picture of Renaissance Humanism

The renaissance was an era of great change in philosophical thought and morality. Before the 15th century, monastic scholasticism had dominated European thinking. Monasticism’s emphasis on a black and...

The theme of love is omnipresent in literature; no matter what nook or cranny you search in a library, it is there. However, this theme conveys more than just kisses, heartbreak, and rampant sexual tension. It describes a culture through their...

How many different interpretations can be derived from one source? Due to the ubiquitous distinctions that exist within each person, the result we perceive from an event changes with each individual perception. Out of the various editions of...

In ‘Hamlet’, Shakespeare develops his various characters through the balance of two specific dimensions. He uses these two perspectives to give his audience the opportunity to view his play through two distinct scopes. Shakespeare chooses to do...

It has been inferred by researchers for decades that Shakespeare used the plots and characters of his theatrical works to comment on the current political climate of England’s monarchy at the time. During the late 16th and early 17th century,...