Hamlet

Hamlet is one of the most represented plays of all times.

The events in the play are told in a poetical way.

Plot

The tragedy is set in Denmark and the protagonist is Hamlet who is the prince of the state.

His father Hamlet has just dead and his brother Claudius has inherited the throne and married his wife Gertrude.

On a dark night a ghost/spirit tells him:

-       he is his father and reveals

-       he has been killed by his brother and Hamlet’s uncle, Claudius.

Hamlet is asked to seek revenge on him.

Prince Hamlet devotes (dedicarsi) himself to avenging (vendicarsi) his father’s death, but, because he is contemplative and thoughtful by nature, he delays, entering into a deep melancholy and even apparent madness.

One day he decides to organize a play in which actors perform a scene resembling his father’s murder to understand if his uncle Claudius is really guilty. He finally decides to take revenge, but he persuades himself not to do it during Claudius’s prayers.

Then he goes to confront his mother when he speaks about the disgusting relationship between Gertrude and his uncle. He also kills Polonius by mistake and after the crime he’s sent to England.

Hamlet is in line with the culture in Shakespeare’s time an it’s the idea of a play as a revenge tragedy.

At that time life was conceived (concepita) in terms of hell and heaven. In Hamlet tragedy we have the play and the interplay (interpretazione) with good and bad.

-       Evil is hamlet’s uncle, Claudius who usurped Hamlet’s father’s throne

-       Good is hamlet’s father (natural king of the reign)

Monologue

The theme of the monologue is introduce by the famous sentence "To Be or not Be"

In the soliloquy, the protagonist of the Shakespeare’s tragedy , Hamlet is pondering whether to live or to die. He has to make a decision and he has got two alternatives.

The first is one is to life but suffering the problems of life.

The second one is to die and committing suicide but he doesn’t know what to do because although death is compared to a long sleep, he can not know what king of rest is. Thanks to his deduction, Hamlet understands the reason why most people do not commit suicide, which is cowardice.

Since Hamlet is one of the most controversial and complex tragedies in the history of literature, many scholars and experts have studied it. The main issue is: why did it take such a long to Hamlet to take revenge on his father?

Different opinions have been expressed.

-       The first reason may be the fact that Hamlet is not completely sure about his uncle guilt (that's the reason why he has organized the play in which actors are asked to perform a scene which is similar to his father's presumed murder).

-       The second group of hypothesis puts together some internal causes, which are the most significant ones. According to different experts, the cause of the hero's delay is irresolution, caused by his reflective and speculative mind.

There are two main inner causes:

-       According to some scholars Hamlet suffers from melhancoly, a mental disorder caused by the shock lived after his father's death. It leads a person to be generally passive except in some moment of excitement in which the disease causes an impulsive activity. indeed, characterized by an incapacity of action but also has some moments of cruelty and impulsivity, for example when he kills Polonius.

-       According to Freud, Hamlet has an Oedipus complex: He's in love with his mother and therefore feels jealousy for his father. These feelings are on an unconscious level and also are immoral, so Hamlet can't handle them. However, the negative act committed by Claudius (killing king hamlet and marry Gertrude) is what hamlet unconsciously wanted to do. That's why he delays the revenge and can't kill Claudius.

Why Hamlet has much success in Shakespeare’s time and also in our days?

Hamlet is one of the most famous and appreciated tragedies written by Shakespeare and has been particularly successful for several reasons. The main source of success is probably the fact that the play is characterized by a protagonist who is extremely realistic, he's an adolescent with his weaknesses, fears, and doubts. Hamlet an innovative character, extremely modern who differs from the classical hero.

He represents a "modern character" and symbolizes every man in the world, every man who asks questions and is naturally doubtful.

Another element of modernity is the particular way in which Shakespeare described the relationships among the members of the family: he introduced issues and feelings which make him a play-writer ahead of his time. A soliloquy has been analyzed in particular and begins with the famous sentence "To be or not to be" in which Hamlet is pondering whether to live or to die. He has to make a decision and he has got two alternatives. The first is one is to live and face the problems of life and the second one is to die committing suicide. He doesn’t know what to do because although death is compared to a long sleep, he cannot know whether it is a peaceful rest or a sleep characterized by nightmares. Such a soliloquy can suggest further reflections, for example the issue of euthanasia, which refers to the practice of intentionally ending a life in order to relieve pain and suffering; Hamlet's doubt is similar since euthanasia is a choice between life and death. In conclusion, Hamlet's success has been determined by the modernity of the issues which are described, the innovation of the characters and the suggestions given by the most important parts of the play.