Hamlet as a tragic hero

M.K. Bhavnagar University Dept. Of English

NAME: Trivedi Disha Hiteshbhai

ROLL NO: 40

M.A SEM-1

BATCH OF YEAR: 2015-17

Paper No: 1     

Topic: Hamlet as a tragic hero   

Submitted to: Smt. S.b.gardi Dept. of English

Respected sir,

Here I give my opinion about Hamlet as a tragic hero.

                   Hamlet as a tragic hero              

# Brief introduction of writer.

·       ‘Hamlet’ play written by William Shakespeare he is one of the most famous writer and greatest dramatist of his age.

·       Ben Johnson called him:

“The soul of the age”      

                             And

“He was not of an age,

                     But for all time”.

Carlyle, too, rightly observed:

“The empire will go,

                   At any rate some day,

But this Shakespeare does not go,

He lasts forever with us,

We cannot give up our Shakespeare”.

Today we can find his many famous books. His hundreds of editions of play have been published and translations in all major languages.

# Character sketch of Hamlet:

Hamlet, the prince of Denmark, generally agreed to be William Shakespeare’s most fascinating hero. No brief sketch can satisfy his host of admirers or take into account more than a minute fraction of the commentary now in print. The character is a mysterious combination of a series of literary sources and the phenomenal genius of the playwright. Orestes in Greek tragedy is probably his ultimate progenitor, not Oedipus, as some critics have suggested. The Greek original has been altered and augmented by medieval saga and Renaissance romance. Perhaps an earlier Hamlet, written by Thomas Kyd, furnished important material; however, the existence of such a play has been disputed. Hamlet is a mixture of tenderness and violence, a scholar, lover, friend, athlete, philosopher, satirist, and deadly enemy; he is larger than life. Torn by grief for his dead father and disappointment in the conduct of his beloved mother, Hamlet desires a revenge so complete that it will reach the soul as well as the body of his villainous uncle. His attempt to usurp God’s prerogative of judgment leads to all the deaths in the play. Before his death, he reaches a state of resignation and acceptance of God’s will. He gains his revenge but loses his life.

 He is one of the most complex and challenging characters ever drawn on the pages of any drama. Hamlet is the greatest human composition. He has many sided personality like a prince, courter, philosopher, an intellectual, a worrier, scholar, etc,..Here we shall Endeavour to note the salient characteristics of his personality.

Over the centuries critics have explained for Hamlets behavior, but none of them has would been able to…

“Pluck out the heart of my mystery”.

As Hamlet puts it himself.  

Ophelia’s …..

“O what a Nobel mind”.

Speech is one of many suggesting that Shakespeare meant us to think of him this way. 

  While the earliest view was that Hamlet simply a victim of circumstances, later critics saw him as a beautiful but ineffectual soul who lacked the strength of will to avenge his father. Hamlet doesn’t want money, richness, kingdom or empire, etc….His kingdom is the kingdom of mind, and his thoughts are dearer to him than the common realities of everyday life.

Hamlet has been a student and scholar at the Wittenberg University Germany. Still he allows sufficient time to make sure of his grounds. He is skeptical about the ghost also.

“The spirit that i have seen;

May be the dived

‘he says ’Frailty, name is woman!”

If all his feelings translate themselves into thought, it is on less true that all his thought are impregnated with feelings. He loved Ophelia deeply but Ophelia is unable to offlgrstand his depth and does not act and response proper. Hamlet also loves his mother a lot but he hate her to as a wife of his uncle Claudius.

Dr. Bradley thinks that ‘Hamlet’ melancholy is the key to his character. He was not born melancholy. He was cheerful but the ciralmsthance have made him so. This father’s death has given him a great shock. He is tired of life and wishes to dies.

“o that this too, too solid flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into dew”.

He suffers from depression and militates suicide. The problem of madness is perhaps the most important and the most bewildering and most maddening problem in Hamlet. There are certain who believe that Hamlet is really mad where as there are certain other critics who believe that Hamlet is only pretending to be mad. Hamlet is a disturbed soul and tortured man.

He says himself:

   “Sir in my heart these was a king of fighting/

that would not let me sleep”.

#Feminist approach in “hamlet”

  As we can see in the “hamlet’ we find two female character are main in the play.

1)    Gertrude       and        2) Ophelia 

Gertrude is a mother of hamlet and queen of Denmark. She is loved a lot hamlet and he also loved his mom but after his father death hamlet opinion changed for his mother because one day king hamlet ghost come and tell him everything what happen with him and who is doing every think and say his secret of his death. After knowing everything he decides to take revenge of his father death. All thinks are come in his mind and thinking how it this possible for any woman can do re marriage just after her husband’s death only passing 2 months. Because it it very short time to growing up. No doubt Gertrude give her all time best for Hamlet.

Ophelia is a beloved of Hamlet. Allover she is very beautiful and innocent girl in play. But Ophelia’s father used to her every time likes a puppet. He all time force to her doing this or this.

In Hamlet we find many approaches every character drawing very well.

Hamlet used most famous soliloquy.. “To be or not to be” that is the question:

Annotations: 

To be, or not to be: that is the question: 
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer 
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, 
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them ? To die: to sleep; 
No more; and by a sleep to say we end 
the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
that flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation 
devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep; 
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; 
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come 
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect 
That makes calamity of so long life; 
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, 
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes
When he himself might his quietus make 
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear, 
To grunt and sweat under a weary life, 
But that the dread of something after death, 
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn 
No traveller returns, puzzles the will 
And makes us rather bear those ills we have 
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution 
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry, 
And lose the name of action.—soft you now!
 The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons  
Be all my sins remembered.

 In many senses, Hamlet is the quintessential tragic hero. Not only does he begin with the noblest motivations (to punish his father’s murderer) but by the end, his situation is do dire that the only plausible final act should be his death. Like the classical tragic hero, Hamlet does not survive to see the full outcome of his actions and more importantly, this is because he possesses a tragic flaw. While there are a number of flaws inherent to his character, it is Hamlet’s intense identification with and understanding of the power of words and language that ultimately bring about his requisite tragic ending. Hamlet’s deep connection with language and words causes him to base his perceptions of reality on his interpretation and understanding of words and he allows himself to become overwrought with creating meaning. As this thesis statement for Hamlet suggests, eventually, his own words and philosophical internal banter are his end since being a highly verbose and introspective man, this is both one of his greatest gifts as well as his tragic flaw.

# Conclusion

“Hamlet” is revenge play written by world famous writer William Shakespeare. In Hamlet we find hamlet as a critical study and analysis.  

Claudius was aware of power, clearly when he observed of Hamlet’s apparent madness that “madness in great ones must not unwatched go”. With equal truth Rosencrantz and Guildenstern might have observed that power in great ones also must not unwatched go.

# Some of the Last lines of Hamlet#

          O, I die Horatio;

The patent poison quite o’er-crows my spirit;

I cannot live to hear the news from England,

But, I do prophesy the elections lights on Fortinbras:

He was my dying voice so tell him,

With the occur rents more and less which have solicited-

The rest is silence”.

Hear play was end and ending with Hamlets death..

Thank you…………