The tragedy of Hamlet

Tragedy of Hamlet

Hamlet was in the university when he received a message about his feather's death. As a legal heir to the throne, he needed to be home and perform his duty s the new king. He was so young and was still mourning about the inexplicable death of his father, and he still needed to face various issues particularly on who had killed his father. He became obsessed with proving that his own his uncle was the one who had planned for the killing of his father. He tried to show to his father's people (and eventually called as his own people) that in his own ways, he could solve the mystery of his father's death while maintaining a good governance.

Aside from doing what is expected of him in his newly acquired kingdom, Hamlet also became very curious and had questioned about the things and the people surrounding him. He became totally discontented with his family and his disappointment for his mother's speedy re-marriage to his uncle - of all people - haunted him. He could not focus on anything but to avenge his father's death. He could not trust anybody.

In the end, Cladius, Gertrude, Laertes and Hamlet all died tragically with all of them still hating each other.

The moral and social impact of the novel is strongly linked to faith and trust - trust in God and to the people. In Hamlet, trust in the people is very lacking. Characters in the novel distrust each other even to the point of killing one another. Had they been strong in their belief towards the people around them, doubts and anger will not be sufficient to create havoc in them. As a moral and social impact, trusting God and trusting the people will be learned in the novel. Readers will realized, after reading the novel, that anger and hate will not result to anything good, as well as having doubts with God.

Body

Having doubts towards other people, such as the people's motives and/or hidden agenda is the major theme of Hamlet.

Hamlet, in the novel is known for his cynical humor. This he used as his strong weapon in his mission to know the real culprit of his father's death. With Hamlet's ability to voice out his thoughts and feelings in a rather skeptical manner, he was able to identify and determine the real motives of the people around him - distrustful it may seem, but ironically effective in Hamlet's part. A good example of his cynical humor coupled with undying distrust towards the people working around him is his conversation with Polonius. Hamlet just wants to know if Polonius is an honest man, but his exact words hit and took Polonius off guard: "Honest my lord? Ay sir. To be honest, as this world, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand." (http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/hamlet/themes.html,2004).

The ghosts symbolize the fear, angst and anger in each of the major character's heart on the play Hamlet. Ghosts are not proven real and nobody can prove the existence of it. Like anger, fear and angst, nobody would ever dare that a person has these feelings in his/her heart. The characters in the play maintain such feelings but nobody has even dared to show up and resolved such feelings. They remained growing and hurting inside each of the character's hearts and minds.

In Hamlet, the characters had no way of turning back. Nobody has even dared to correct the thoughts that have been going through the major characters' minds. To quote:

Let Hercules himself do what he may,

The cat will mew, and dog will have his day." - Hamlet (http://www.hamlet.org,2006)