The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

Hamlet can be considered one of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies, along with Macbeth and The Tempest. The Tragedy was written between 1599 and 1602 and it was put on the stage in the Globe Theatre. During his life Shakespeare wrote a lot of tragedies, drawing inspiration from medieval matters.

The Tragedy consists of a narrative form of literature which tells a story about an adolescent. The Tragedy is set in a Castle of Denmark, during Hamlet’s period the political instability was one of the main aspects. The setting, the period and the situations remind of a dark atmosphere, where death and conflicts are all-present/omnipresent aspects.

The protagonist is a tragic hero, a person of noble birth with some qualities and ideals. But he has got also an inner conflict, that often leads him to death. He is lost in his thoughts and he doesn’t find a sense of life in a world, that doesn’t respond to his needs.

It is important to consider the Tragedy from some point of view, distinguishing some levels of connotation:

1-   the political level: Hamlet, the protagonist, is a Prince, the king’s son, he has a role in his kingdom

2-   the family level: Hamlet has got a mother and a father and he feels love and affection for them. His father is murdered and his uncle, Claudius, becomes the king of Denmark, marring Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude.

3-   the generation level: Hamlet is an adolescent and he belongs to a young generation

The story is based on Hamlet’s jealousy for his mother, that leads him to hate his uncle. This series of negative feelings can be summed in Oedipus complex (Sigmund Freud’s idea about the relationship between two parents of the same sex). In fact the story starts with the Hamlet’s father’s death and the marriage between Gertrude (Hamlet’s mother) and Claudius (Hamlet’s uncle). The died father’s ghost appears, and declares his murderer: Claudius. Hamlet wants to prove his uncle’s guilt. He hides his strange behavior through the false love for Ophelia, Polonio’s daughter, king of Poland. Meanwhile a travelling players arrives at the castle. Hamlet asks them to perform a play in which a king is murdered by his brother to see the Claudius’ reaction and prove his guilt. At this point a lot of tragic events is realized: the chaos and political and family instability leads the character to murder each other. At the end Fortinbras, prince of Norway, succeeds to the throne of Denmark.